Indian food is known for its wide variety of flavors and textures in almost every part of the world. No matter how much we say we love pizzas and burgers, it’s always the traditional dishes loaded with trademark spices which overwhelms our taste buds.
Until now, it was just assumed by us that Indian cuisine is the most delicious cuisine in the world, but now we have scientific data which testifies this fact.
A famous American news blog, Washington Post, showed a study in its post where over 2000 popular dishes were analyzed to find out the reason behind the distinct taste of Indian food.
The most basic difference which was found between Indian food and recipes of the USA and other European countries was that at the molecular level, the Indian flavors are very unique and radical when compared to others.
When the food chemists broke down the dishes into very small parts in order to observe them under the microscope, it was seen that Western dishes showed common food pairings, a not too surprising trend. The ingredients had around 50 flavor compounds which were not so very different from each other.
Researchers in their study at IIT Jodhpur observed that flavor compounds rarely overlapped in Indian dishes. Anupam Jaina, Ganesh Bagler and Rakhi N Kb of this institute took recipes from tarladalal.com to pursue their research. They found out that the Indian cuisine puts more emphasis on mixing flavors, which do not overlap at all, this reduces monotony in the food and results in a brilliant and unique taste.
As a part of this study, the researchers at IIT also discovered the fact that out of 381 ingredients known to humans, Indians use almost 200 of them in their food.
The most common spices used in the Indian food are green bell pepper, garam masala, tamarind, coriander, cayenne and a few others. The flavors, which these spices provide are very hard to replace by any other chemical or natural ingredient, hence preserving the distinctness of the food.
The researchers said, “Each of the spices is uniquely placed in its recipe to shape the flavor sharing pattern with the rest of the ingredients.”
I am pretty sure that this research will bring a huge smile on the face every Indian chef including the big names like Tarla Dalal and Sanjeev Kapoor. The popularity of Indian food is reaching new heights every day and this research is only going to boost this upsurge.
Be it the classic Dal Makhani or our all time favorite, Chicken Butter Masala, every Indian dish offers something new and amazing to the taste buds. And now with scientific data proving that Indian food is the most delicious food in the world, we have earned the right to brag a little more about our cuisine. 😛
Image Credits: Indian Consulate
