First of all whitehippy, thank you for your intervention on my behalf with the mods. I hope it works out... but just as an aside here is my feeling on Middle Eastern food: its like good sex that gets you just to the edge of an orgasm. It looks good, smells good, tastes good and almost gets you right there. All it needs is a dash of chili powder to get you over the edge. And never quite gets me there, missing that last push of spice.
Originally Posted by East Indian Anjuli
Lol I agree, when I think of Middle Eastern food, I think of gyros, falafel, tabbouleh, baklava, lots of different kinds of meat (especially beef, goat, and lamb), hummus, baba ghanoush, tahini, kibbe, mantu etc etc.
While I love all of the above, I agree, it has something missing.
I've traveled and lived in both the Middle East and India, and enjoyed both areas of the world. There are so many different cuisines in India that it's hard to really define Indian food. In the US, what most people think of as Indian food is actually North Indian/Punjabi food. Chicken tikka masala, tandoori chicken, naan, palak paneer etc etc. Most Indian restaurants in the US do a mediocre greasy version of these dishes but that's another story.
In South India, the cuisine is quite different, and people usually eat rice on a daily basis . The curries are also different, using different ingredients such as coconut milk, tamarind, different spices etc. I love sambhar, curd rice, sambhar rice, pongal, idli, dosa, aviyal, vethakorambu, appalam, payasam etc.
Apart from North Indian and South Indian cuisines, you have Eastern Indian cuisine, Western Indian cuisine, Central Indian cuisine, Coastal Indian cuisine etc etc. Lol what am I doing, I'm speaking to the choir. I'm sure you know a lot more about Indian cuisines than I do lol.
Going back to my earlier point, the reason why I know that India and the Middle East are very different is because I've traveled and lived in both areas of the world extensively.