(This poast marks one year since I started this blog. I’ve been incredibly lucky to meet so many of you through Twitter – thanks for sticking with this deracinated hirsute girltwink. Enjoy my ramblings!)

Born to Indian parents, I spent my adolescence in Delhi, a Mecca for food lovers. As a true gourmand, I can’t cook to save my scrawny arse. As an anorexic bottom with IBS, I stay as far away as possible from Indian food. This post isn’t a criticism of Indian food in general, but an exploration of the multiple facets of what people think Indian food is, and how that reconciles with my own experiences and opinions. A large part of this post specifically talks about what is considered to be northern Indian food, but don’t worry - I’ll go into what other parts of India have to offer towards the end!

Many people romanticise Indian food – when eating out, they love to order certain dishes (‘dal, mango lassi, naan bread, chai latte, chicken tikka’ – the whole gamut), trying to relish the taste of these dishes while steam comes out of their ears and shit comes out of their anus. In Southeast Asia, hawkers make nutritious and tasty food very similar to what they would cook at home. This is in contrast to India, with mundane home-cooked (I believe this concept is referred to saatvik) food – flatbreads made from unleavened flour or rice, a side dish of lentils or vegetables like beans, okra, and members of the gourd and cruciferous families, flavoured with tomatoes, alliums, and spices such as asafoetida, turmeric, and cumin, and chillies.

Indian street food, in contrast, is excessively fried, salty, and sweet. People eat out because home-cooked food is drab. I personally don’t understand why people eat street food, considering it’s not only unhealthy but also unhygienic (imagine flies in the open, someone scratching their arse or picking their nose before serving you) and often adulterated (like mixing detergent with milk or substituting silver foil used to cover sweetmeats with aluminium foil). Why do people yearn for crappy Old Delhi street food? The myth that eating out helps fortify your immunity needs to stop – instead of taking smegmaglutide, you can simply have some Indian street food and observe the same effect; I always recommend including the cost of Imodium while pricing Indian food correctly.

When friends rave about eating at Dishoom, saying it’s great and cheap Indian food, it irks me. They merely interpret what Zoroastrian cafes in Bombay used to serve, and adapt it for the Western palate with a bit of heat. Any person who has had proper Indian food will tell you Dishoom’s fare is simply mediocre in terms of both menu and taste, despite their chefs being from India.

I do not want to totally denigrate Indian street food. I think incorporating certain techniques in Indian fine dining could help them win more Michelin stars. I’ve been to some very promising Indian restaurants doing interesting things, and I’m hopeful that an Indian restaurant will earn three Michelin stars (or 5 AA rosettes/20 from the Gault Millau) in the near future if more people decide to become vanguards of Indian cuisine instead of becoming doctors/engineers. Moving on the quality of produce from India, chai latte is made from broken orange pekoe instead of higher grade tea – most of its flavour is covered up by an excessive amount of ginger. Most spice blends consist of poor-quality ingredients with all the spice oil squeezed out. India has much better varieties of mangoes than the celebrated Alphonsos, like Kesari and Sindoori. Apart from the adulteration mentioned earlier, Indian milk is fattier as it generally comes from buffaloes (yet people eat them instead of cows) – think up to 8% fat compared to around 3%, not to mention the fat globules floating around. The milk is whiter too as it contains no β-carotene. Proper Indian lassi has such a low Reynolds number that it can induce a gag reflex and work like an emetic. Contrary to popular belief, no one eats naan bread at home because it is impossible to set up a clay oven at home. Naan is made from refined flour – there are much better alternatives like shallow-fried, stuffed flatbreads. India also has its own form of truffle oil – screw pine oil (keora), which is added to inferior quality rice to amplify the flavour. The only good produce to come out of India are juicy, sweet red carrots.

Many people avoid eating alliums for cultural reasons, and several Jains abstain from eating tubers. Beef is very much a part of the food culture in Kerala and the northeastern regions of India, contrary to what people on the Internet say. Cardiac disease and hypertension are common due to high consumption of clarified butter (ghee) and lower-quality hydrogenated fats (Dalda). B12 deficiency is also fairly prevalent due to a lack of meat consumption.

Next time you consume some random Indian food, please try something new! It feels really sad to see greasy, acidic food being promoted over dishes like ratha poriyal, akhuni, or beef curry!