Western India Cuisine
The original cuisine of western India
is principally vegetarian. This is largely due to the enterprising,
but strictly vegetarian, Marwari community from Rajasthan, who have
now spread all over the country. Wherever they went, so did their food
of course.
The Marwari cuisine is a good example of how the best was made of
locally available stuff. It is spicy and extremely rich with almost
everything being doused in ounces of ghee (clarified butter). This
was to make up for the lack of variety in materials available in the
spartan desert surroundings that they lived.
Essentially, the cuisine is simple with dishes like alloo bhajis
(spicy potatos), karhi (chickpea dumplings in yoghurt sauce), dal
batti (lentil dumplings oozing with ghee dunked in dal) which are
polished off with rice and pooris (puffed whole wheat fried breads).
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