Eat Indian food and curry on!
India has one of the most diverse and delicious food cultures in the world. For many travellers to this amazing country, the food is a real highlight – some people travel to India just to eat! It’s easy to see why, with thousands of dishes packed full of flavour, spices and ingredients you’ve probably never heard of before. Here’s how to explore India through food.
Warning: this might make you hungry!
Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul. Dorothy Day
Types of Curries
There are countless different curries and other dishes, incredible vegetarian meals such as matar paneer (cottage cheese and peas in a creamy gravy), moreish breads, sweets like barfi (milky fudge), jalebi (deep-fried batter soaked in sugar syrup) or kulfi (ice cream often served with pistachios), all washed down with drinks like yoghurt lassis, nimbu pani (freshly squeezed lime juice) and sweet, spicy masala chai. With all of these dishes you are sure to find your favourite dish in India.
Do a cooking class
If you want to try your hand at cooking some of the many delicious dishes India has to offer, the best way to learn is by doing a cooking class. In any area in India where there are tourists, there’ll be cooking classes – whether you want to learn to make bread, the perfect curry, dessert or chutney. Some hotels, such as Haritha’s Farm in Kerala, which has an eight-day cooking adventure programme, offer food-focused trips. You can also stay at an Ayurvedic (traditional Indian health system) resort, where you can do classes to learn to cook healthy Ayurvedic dishes to suit your body type.
Stay in different regions
India is a hugely diverse country when it comes to regional food. Different areas of the country have remarkably different flavours, ingredients and dishes, from the creamy, rich curries of the north to the lighter seafood coconut curries of the south. Go to Goa for spicy vindaloo curry, Uttar Pradesh for biryanis, Punjab for dal makhni (lentil curry), Chandigarh for food cooked in a tandoor oven and Tamil Nadu for masala dosas (pancakes filled with curried vegetables and served with chutneys). The more regions you visit in India, the more varied dishes you’ll get to taste!
Taste authentic Indian street food
Be sure to try Indian street food which is fantastic, and you can find it all over the cities and towns being sold at small roadside stands (tip: only eat food that has been freshly cooked to avoid the dreaded Delhi Belly). Each city has its own street food snacks, from the vada pao (potato burgers) of Mumbai, to the egg rolls of Kolkatta (fried eggs wrapped inside paratha with chutney), to idli sambhar (savoury steamed cakes with vegetable stew) of Chennai in the south, to mirchi bajji (stuffed deep fried chillies) in Hyderabad.
Learn to cook on a homestay
Homestays are a wonderful alternative to hotels in India: you get to live with a family and experience a real slice of local life. At many homestays, you’ll be able to learn how to cook favourite family dishes, which you’ll then share with the family and other guests around the dinner table. Some homestays are even foodie-focused, such as the Aakriti Homestay in Tamil Nadu, where your hosts, who are chefs, teach you how to make vegetarian dishes from all over India.
Visit a tea plantation
Tea is the favourite drink of India, and you’ll likely find yourself drinking many cups of sweet, spicy and delicious masala chai while you’re there. If you want to get the real tea experience, plan to visit a tea plantation where you can see how tea is grown and learn about how the processing works – there are many spread around the country in the north and in the south. There’s the beautiful hill station of Darjeeling which produces a quarter of all of India’s tea, while Assam, in the remote north east, is referred to as the “Tea Capital of the World”. In the southern state of Kerala, there’s the hill station of Munnar, covered in lush plantations, while the Nilgiri Mountains of Tamil Nadu produce particularly aromatic tea leaves.