Traditional Food and Cuisine Native to Indore City

Central Indian states and are known to offer some of the largest verity of food dishes some origins not even know.  This is due to the cities strategic location putting it precisely a forth the distance from west to East India resulting in a city used to restock supplies, water and food as trade caravans travelled from west to east. Many people don’t go back far enough in history and don’t realized many Indian communities had already established huge trading links well before Europeans reach the Indian sub-continent.

This is how most major cities like Indore come in to existence since the caravans needed a place to store and restore as well as rest before setting of on for the next city. Indore falls on the Kolkata and Ahmedabad which puts the city on a very bust route which has been used for centuries. 

This has resulted in traders using the city as a stopover and this has brought with it the influences from a wide verity of cultures. This is the main reason behind Indore’s food being as versatile as they have adapted to different food requirements and tastes to cater for the traders passing through the city. Some popular food found in Indore include:

One of the clearest indication linked to Indore adapting different food ingredients in to its own is the use of coconut milk to cook certain foods. This was introduced to Indore by the cultures living close to the ocean and since most of the long distance caravan traders used to travel from coastal regions the coconut milk extract was adapted in to many of the local hotels and restaurants. 

Today its loosing demand since this is no longer a caravan trade route as cargo and products are now shipped by rail. Certain families continue using coconut milk to cook rice and other meals which results in delivering that distinctive coast culture flavour.

Indore has a wide verity of non-veg meals and this is once again linked to the influence of long distance traders passing through the city. Many coastal communities will consumer fish and meat and this has resulted in many of the Indore meals consisting of non-veg. Chicken and mutton are the main types of meat consumed due to the unviability of large water bodies to collect fish from.

Pilaf is a rice dish which is very popular today across India but originally come from Indore. It is made using a verity of vegetables or meat which are cooked to deliver a more nutrition and colour rice meal. Many people confuse this meal for Biryani but it is different and more dye thus requiring the rice meal to be eaten with curd or yogurt. The quality of rice used must be high to improve the quality of the Palau cooked and some hard vegetables and meats require prior cooking before the rice is added to the meal and cooked.

These are half-moon shapes deserts which are made using sweetened wheat dough and stuffed with sweetened semolina. This results in a succulent sweet which can be eaten without any requirement for a lubricating drink like coffee, tea or milk. The semolina stiffing is usually made using ghee and mink and used while still moist. The wheat flour toping is meant to lock in the flavours and moisture to keep the sweet moist at all times.

This is another sweet dish native to Indore and it made up of a wheat dough wrap which is stuffed with a verity dried and fresh fruits before being dipped in a sweet syrup. This sweet is distinct to Indore and has grown popular across the nation but none come close those made at their origin Indore. 

The fruits added to the stuffing are usually made up of resins, and verity of dried fruits which are fried in ghee before being left in a sweet syrup to absorb the juices before being stuffed in to the Lavang Lata. Soaking the dried fruits in the syrup helps soften them as well as increase their volume thus allowing the sweet maker to make more Lavang Lata from a small amount of dried fruits.

Indore has always been famous for some great foods and the main factor linked to their success is accepting to alter their own cuisine by adapting and using ingredients from other cultures. Doing this creates a perfect cultural food fusion which has helped ensure the Indore cuisine remains unique and desired across India.