Food and Flavors of India

Indian cuisine consists of a variety of regional and traditional cuisines native to the Indian subcontinent. Given the diversity in soil, climate, culture, ethnic groups, and occupations, these cuisines vary substantially and use locally available spices, herbs, vegetables, and fruits. Indian food is also heavily influenced by religion, in particular Hinduism, cultural choices and traditions.

Lets explore the pattern of tastebuds across the country

India’s population is highly diverse, with cultural identities heavily influenced by religious and regional particularities. Ayurvedic teachings, emphasizing equilibrium between mind, body, and spirit, have exerted an influence over Indian cuisine in general, dictating ingredient pairings and cooking practices.

Approximately one-third of India’s population is vegetarian, dictated by their Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist faiths. For example, Hindu followers abstain from beef, because cattle are sacred in this faith. Depending on the dominant religious beliefs of a region, the cuisine in a particular area may omit certain ingredients to comply with religious law.

Visualizing Food Patterns

We will be going through an overview of food patterns of Indian Cuisine based on flavors, cook-time, type of courses and diets across different regions and states of India. The dataset for the following visualizations can be found here .

The stacked bar-graph on the left shows us the distribution of flavors across all the regions of India. Spicy and sweet flavors are the most predominant flavors in every region; Most of the dishes in the west and east regions are spicy and sweet, and we see very few traces of the bitter and sour flavors across the country.
The pie-charts on the right show us a spread of flavors within a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian diet. We see that all the non-vegetarian dishes are spicy.

The pie chart shows us the avrg. cooking time for all courses of meals. Dessert usually takes the longest, & snacks take the least time to cook.
In the scatter plot, we see the average cook-time vz. the average prep-time of all dishes for each region. Dishes made in the North-East usually require a very low cooking time, because they are steamed, with minimal use of spices, and more use of vegetables or meat.
Biryani, a famous dish made in a clay pot, was first orginated in Central India. It is one of dishes that need very less prepartion time, but its flavor is enhanced by cooking it on low flame for hours.

The grouped bar-chart shows which type of meal is really dominant in each of these states. Punjab stands top on main course, and is very famous as well. Any "North-indian" food that we get in famous restaurants is typically originated from Punjab and its nearby states in the North. North Indian cuisine uses a lot of Dairy - Paneer (cottage cheese), malai (cream), and ghee(clarified butter).
Gujarat is known for fast food, and delicious snacks, and hence stands highest in the list. The locals of Gujarat are huge foodies and tend to innovate snack items with every possible ingredient! Some of the famous snacks in Gujarat are Dhokla, Khandvi, Khakra, Patra, Jalebi & Faafda.
West Bengal stands high on dessert. They are well-known for "Mithai's" - these are a variety of dry-fruit sweets and sweets like Rasgullas & Gulab-jamuns that are sweets dipped in a sugar syrup.
My mouth is watering as I write about these foods!
The pie chart on the right, shows a distribution of the average cook-time for each of these states. It looks like an equal spread, with Maharashtra having a slightly higher cooking-time.

Similar to most cuisines, cooking time for vegetarian dishes is much higher than non-vegetarian dishes.
North and West regions of India make spicy main courses and snacks that take the maximum time, while South indian dishes like the Biryani, take the most time in the Non-vegetarian category.
It is interesting to note that North-eastern food in India are hardly vegetarian (atleast from our data). some of the states in the Western region follow Buddhism and Jainism, and follow strict dietary restictions - which is why they stand least within the Non-vegetarian category.

Aloo Dum & Puris

About me:

My ancestral origin is Gujarat, the Western region of India.
I am born and brought up in TamilNadu which is in the South of India.
Since my religion and culture is based on western traditions of India, I am a vegetarian.

The Gravy: Aloo Dum:

Flavor: Spicy
The gravy is the aloo dum, which is made of baby potatoes in a rich gravy that is full of spices. It consists of cashew,tomato, ginger, chilli and onion paste with a dash of yogurt to balance the flavor. The spices include cardomom, cinnamon, cloves, bay-leaf and garam masala powder. It is a slow cooked dish originated in Kashmir, in the North of India.
Prep- time : 20 minutes
Cook-time: 45 minutes
You can find the recipe here!

The Bread: Puris:

Flavor: Savory
The puris are a type of bread that is eaten with the gravy. The dough is made of wheat flour, salt, corriander leaves and a herb called ajwain, which enhances the flavor. This is rolled out into small shapes and is deep fried.
Prep- time : 15 minutes
Cook-time: 10 minutes
You can find the recipe here!

Design and Content by Tanvi Modi

References

Data: Kaggle

Code: W3 Schools , StackOverflow, Grid Generator

Design Inspiration: CSS Zen Garden

Visualization: R Graph Gallery

Diversity in food across Regions of India

Visualizing Food Patterns

Flavors

Across Regions

Within Diets

Cooking time

For all the Regions

For all the Courses

Let us analyze 6 states –
One from each region

Distribution of Courses

Cook-time

Indian food is SPICY and is full of flavors of spices!

Fun-Fact: Indian food I made today!

Aloo Dum & Puris

Diversity in food across Regions of India

Visualizing Food Patterns

Flavors

Across Regions

Within Diets

Cooking time

For all the Regions

For all the Courses

Let us analyze 6 states – One from each region

Distribution of Courses

Cook-time

Indian food is SPICY and is full of flavors of spices!

Fun-Fact: Indian food I made today!

Aloo Dum & Puris

Let us analyze 6 states –
One from each region