Novelist and columnist Shobhaa Dé said in her book 'Superstar India - From Incredible to Unstoppable': "Indian food is like classical music raga- it takes time to build up to a crescendo." Indeed this cuisine is an art, from the moment of preparation to the point of consumption. Once experienced, its distinctive taste burrows into the taste buds onto the human memory where it claims its niche.
Finally what makes Indian food taste incredible has been deciphered by science.
A group of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) studied more than 2,500 recipes of Indian food, specifically referencing dishes from TarlaDalal.com. The scientists analysed the compounds and combinations of flavours in each dish. Typically, any ingredient has 50 molecular flavour compounds. These compounds may be shared by different ingredients.
Usually the overlaps of these compounds in ingredients used to cook a dish is not immediately obvious or noticeable. However, the IIT researchers discovered that Indian cuisine actually uses among the most complex combinations of these compounds. A single dish may, in fact, use thousands of flavour compound combinations. The researchers state: "We found that average flavor sharing in Indian cuisine was significantly lesser than expected."
In contrast to the panache for contrasts in Indian food, Western dishes tend to have little variance in the molecular flavour compounds of their ingredients.
The scientists explain further: "Each of the spices is uniquely placed in its recipe to shape the flavor sharing pattern with rest of the ingredients."
Still, the essence and appeal of Indian cuisine may be enduring, but it is not impervious to trends. In 2015, some of the indian food trends that took flight as compiled by Quartz include increase in availability of quality indian food via food delivery, increase in local produce sourcing, increase in "deconstructed ready-to-cook meals" that are nothing like microwave meals, increase in salad and pressed juice bars.
