India is an ancient land of centuries old traditions, of multiple faiths, of numerous languages and as many dialects, all of which is woven into a rich tapestry of culture that never ceases to mesmerize. The history of this amazing land can be traced all the way back to one of the earliest civilizations of the world, the Aryan civilization, dating back to over three thousand years.

The cuisine of India is a culmination of eons of historical, religious and geographical influences and each region of the land has its own finely defined cuisine. Yet it is possible to define the salient features of what is considered as being one of the greatest cuisines of the world. Salaam Bombay takes pleasure in taking you through a brief foray into the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent. For, to serve great food, it is essential to go back to the roots and understand the finer nuances of its rich culture.

Indian food is characterized by the rich spectrum of spices in which it is cooked, giving the food its inimitable flavor and aroma. Spices, in a culinary sense, embraces dried seeds, berries, bark, rhizomes, flowers, leaves and chilies. Spices have always been considered to be India 's prime commodity and the usage of spices in India is recorded in Sanskrit texts dating back to over 3000 years. Although the usage of spices can be termed as a common denominator, the variation in Indian food from region to region is quite staggering.

Another salient feature of Indian cuisine is the usage of an abundance of vegetables than any other cuisine. Moreover, it has evolved to incorporate religious and caste restrictions, weather, geography and the influence of foreign invasions over the years. For example, the Brahmins castes are usually strict vegetarians, but in the coastal states of West Bengal and Kerala, where fresh fish is in abundance, it is a part of their daily diet. South Indians generally speaking, are orthodox in their tastes, probably because eating meat in a hot climate is not very conducive to health. In the North, the weather varies from scorching summers to bitter-cold winters. So, the food here is rich and aromatic. Also, the Mughal influence has added new flavors, meats with cream and butter sauces, lamb marinated in yogurt, meat cooked for several hours to an inimitable silky texture with dates and nuts, saffron flavored rice cooked with meat, all of which make the North Indian cuisine famous for exotic non vegetarian food.

Eating from a thali, a metal plate or banana leaf is quite common in most parts of India . Both the North Indian and South Indian thali contain small bowls arranged in the plate or leaf, each filled with a different food, curd and sweet. Rice or puris (wheat bread rolled into small circular shapes and deep-fried in hot oil) are served in the center of the thali. It is an Indian custom to wash hands immediately after and before eating a meal as it is believed that food tastes better when eaten with one's hands. If you'd like to experience a thali meal, Salaam Bombay serves the Surti Thali, a vegetarian meal complete with aromatic rice, fluffy puris, spiced vegetables, rich relishes, delectable sweets that evoke memories of a enchanting land and its epic story.

Paan, or beetle leaf with its seasonings is also distinctly Indian and is served as a digestive after a meal. The dark-green leaf of the betel-pepper plant is smeared with a bit of lime and wrapped around a combination of spices like crushed betel-nuts, cardamom, aniseed, sugar and grated coconut. It is an astringent and acts as a digestive.