Jain Cuisine: The Increasing Popularity of an Age-Old Diet
Words by by Isha Jain
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Jain Cuisine: The Increasing Popularity of an Age-Old Diet
The common notion of Indian food is that it is rich in flavour. Ginger, garlic, and onion are the staple ingredients of almost every Indian recipe. Each ingredient is known to provide a deep aroma to the dish. Be it Rajma chawal with raw onion and green chutney in the north, Dal bati churma with lehsun chutney in the west, momos and thukpa with jhol achar from the east or Dosai with ghee and podi from the south, each region has their own favourite dish but with one thing in common, these vegetables. The craze for it is such that they are also served as accompaniments. However, the idea of using them in cooking was a foreign concept to me since childhood. Because I come from a religious community in India, the Jains, who abstain from consuming these and any other root vegetables in their diet.
The first time I realized the difference in our food was when I tasted my friend’s lunch in seventh grade. I begged my mother the whole way back for similar dishes. But my requests were met with a firm ‘No’. As I grew older, the differences in our cuisine became more clear to me along with the problems my parents and grandparents faced in following the diet influenced by their faith.