World Cuisine

"I'll bet what motivated the British to colonize so much of the world is that they were just looking for a decent meal." ~Martha Harrison

Ofcourse with no offense to anyone who is British, but they did come to India to look for spices. There are jokes made in India that they loved it so much and the food was excellent that they decided to stay on and on and on and on.

There are often many such jokes about foods from different parts of the world. For example, it is said that British food is meat and potatoes, that are absolutely tasteless. American food is considred to be hamburgers, hot dogs and soda. When we think of Italian food, we think of pizza and pasta. Similarly, Indian food is always thought to be spicy and something that may cause flatulence. There is nothing wrong with stereotyping foods from all these places. There are always exceptions ofcourse, but they are also unique.

I feel that in the world today, we are losing this uniqueness. Why do we find a Wendy's or a Mac Donalds in places like India and China? It is not supposed to be there. Why do chain restaurants and food corporations have to take over the world? Now if you travel you can get the same food all over. In India, there are always lines of people to get into these chain restaurants. It has become like a status symbol. These irreplaceable food characteristics are fading away into the memories of these magnificent places. The cultural practices are making way for globalization.

This epidemic should be stopped! We need to protect our indigenous foods and make sure that they do not get lost in time. We are what we eat and we are all different, then how can we all eat the samething?