Food Guide for Dummies

Yeah, a long time since my last post, even last comment! What else other that work pressure. It seems with this 'recession' thingy going on, the whole idea is to extract everything out of a group while keep another group without any work to do. You can save money both ways, you see. Seriously, the update is that I am (or was) so busy that I couldn't even take proper lunch, leave aside blogging. Now that I have some free time, my first thought goes to the lunches I missed or food. And everyone know how much I like food.
So, here I am trying to put in some ideas related to food worldwide. They are from my personal experience and hence open to mistakes. Any comment or correction will be gladly accepted.

Here it goes, I will start from my own region and then go around the world.

· Starting with oils used in cooking. In Bengal, mustard oil is used for every cooking, which gives the food a different taste altogether. We all know mustard oil has a pungent smell. So, people having a problem with smelly oils in food, should keep away from oily food in Bengal.

· In Kerala, coconut oil is used extensively. Coconut oil also as its own smell and can be repulsive for some people. The important point is, coconut oil is saturated fat and hence bad for health. So, people conscious about health should keep away.

· In other parts of India, mostly normal vegetable oil is used which most probably comes form rapeseed and sunflower. This oil is generally good for health and everyone can eat such food. But as we all know, too much of everything is bad, same goes with oil too.

· Coming to the masalas or spices used in different parts of India. In Bengal, garam masala consists of cardamom, cinnamon and green cloves. Bengalis also use a mixture of five spices quite commonly, which gives a different aroma to the food.

· In other parts of India, garam masala does not contain cinnamon, and contains loads of other things like black pepper, white pepper, black cardamom etc. Other than this mostly Jeera, Dhania and mustard seeds are used.

· Coming to the staple diet in India, of course we all know that boiled rice and wheat bread (roti/chapatti) for the staple diet in all of India. Though we have other variations like maize, bajra, raagi and jowar.

· Moving to staple diet outside India, the English people have potatoes as there stable diet. They eat them in any form, finger chips, boiled and mashed (mashed potato), mashed and fried(hash-brown), baked (jacket potato). They will usually eat them with baked beans, battered and fried fish, fried chicken.

· China and Japan, again has rice as their staple diet, but beware, their rice is very different from ours. The rice they eat is sticky so that it is easier to pick them up with chopsticks.

· Coming to fast food, in Bengal, fast food ranges from low-end ones like jhaalmuri or bhelpuri, phuchka(paani-puri) to high end ones like Moghlai Paratha and Kabiraaji Cutlet. While jhaalmuri and phuchka are vegetarian ones, all others are non-vegetarian. Also, you will get roll of everything, starting from potato to double-egg plus chicken etc.

· Fast food in Northern India is mostly chaats and paani-puris and dhoklas. You will also get host of pakoras which are a real treat.

· Coming to Southern India, the fast food mainly consists of idli, vada, and dosas. There are a wide range of dosas which can any time outdo one another in taste.

· Moving outside India, the pizzas and pastas originated in Italy. Coming to pizza, all vegetarians should remember that "Pepperoni" is non-veg. It is typically made from pork, and can also be a mixture of pork, chicken and beef.

· Pastas have different varieties, Lasagne, fusilli, tortellini, etc. Almost all original pasta is made fresh, and not from the ready-to-cook dry ones which we get in the market.

· We should not forget the great fast food, burgers! Again, for vegetarians, 'Cheeseburger' does not necessarily contain cheese, but it must contain beef. So, please make sure you do not fall for it.

· Generally, meat in Europe means pork and the same word in America means beef. So, if you are ordering 'meat ball soup', then do so considering which continent you are in.

· Sushi is a famous Japanese food, where you chose a fresh sea food, be it a squid, a crab or anything, and they will just drop that into boiling water and serve. This is not tasted by me but heard.

· 'Cheesecake', though does not contain beef, can be very hard to digest. It is really full of cheese and can give you serious stomach issues if taken as a dessert. I have seen people betting on that.

· Coming to the desserts, sweets in Bengal are mostly made from cottage cheese, locally called as chhana.

· Sweets in other parts of India are made by dehydrating milk also called as khoya.

· Sweets outside India are generally chocolates and candies. Candies are made with flavoured sugar, chocolates are made of milk and cocoa extracts.

· Chocolates can have huge varieties, but the most common ones are white, milk and dark. White chocolate only contains cocoa butter and milk, hence the colour and no smell. Milk chocolate is more milk and less cocoa, whereas dark chocolate has more cocoa than milk, sometimes as much as 70%.

· English people can have tea after their dessert, so don't get amused if the waiter asks so.

· Asking for finger-bowl is a punishable offence in US.

In Europe, it is standard practice to have a coffee after lunch.

InWater is usually soda (sparkling water) and you have to ask for plain water (still water) in case you need it.

Sugar is not default for tea or coffee (I actually like this idea, as I do not prefer sugar in my tea or coffee).

Egg and fish is also considered vegeterian in some parts of the World, so you should specifically ask in case you need pure vegeterian.

In some parts of the world people just cook with olive oil, sesame oil etc.