[Compiled by: Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]
Harappan houses had a kitchen opening from the courtyard,with a hearth or brick-built fireplace.Food in Indus Valley civilization was made in the utensils which included earthenware of various kinds.shapes and in a range of sizes.Most of the potteries were wheel made with fine and smooth appearances that were baked to give it strength.The potteries were painted with black or dark red slips.Such painted potteries included bowls,beakers,goblets,dishes,basins,saucers stands and jars.The excavations also include a number of vessels which are made up of Copper,silver,and lead.may be for in wealthy households.The Indus Valley peoples may be cooked with oils,ginger,salt,green peppers,and turmeric root,which would be dried and ground into an orange powder.We don't know the name of dishes they cooked in day to day life or for any special occasions or for any religious offerings in their kitchens because,mainly,we are still not able to read their language and also we are not found any literature,such as poems or written long records about their activities as sumerian did.But we know the ingredients of their dishes and we know it very well.Also excavations in Mehrgarh have revealed grinding stones which is used in grinding wheat & barley so we can deduce that they used flour and maybe they know how to prepare rotis etc.In harappa too they found hard stone-roller-
grinders[Ammi],the design of which is still found all over india & Sri lanka,confirm the use of spices.Also finding of pottery cooking vessel,may be used for boiling & stewing.Further charred bone remains show that they cooked meat by grilling.Also a small metre-high clay oven,instead of having a side-entry,this egg-shaped vessel's entry hole was at the top,which was narrower than its centre point.It was the ancestor of today's tandoori oven and may be used for bread-making,something fundamental to daily existence.Also Platform For Grinding Grains found at Archaeological Site Of Harappa,Indus Valley Civilization,belongs to 3rd Millennium BC,prove that they grind corn on the platforms for the city's supply of bread.This civilization was highly developed and thus many historians believe that they knew about importance of proper diet in life.
What is curry? The term likely derives from kari, the word for sauce in Tamil, a dravidian language.A curry, as the Brits defined it, might be A mixture of onion, ginger, turmeric, garlic, pepper, chilies, coriander, cumin, and other spices cooked with shellfish, meat, or vegetables.But the original curry predates Europeans’ presence in India & Srilanka by about 4,000 years.Villagers living at the height of the Indus civilization used three key curry ingredients—ginger, garlic, and turmeric—in their cooking.This proto-curry, in fact, was eaten long before Brits defined it .But thanks to technological advances,scientists can now identify minute quantities of plant remains left behind by meals cooked thousands of years ago.It is no easy task; researchers must gather crumbling skeletons and find ancient dirty dishes before using powerful laboratory microscopes to pinpoint the
ingredients of ancient meals.Examining the human teeth and the residue from the cooking pots,[from the late third millennium B.C ancient town of Farmana,west of Delhi ] archaeologists, & scientists spotted the telltale signs of turmeric and ginger, two key ingredients,Even today,of a typical curry.Archaeologist Arunima Kashyap at Washington State University Vancouver, who, along with Steve Weber, made the recent proto-curry discovery.They also found a carbonized clove of garlic.They found additional supporting evidence of ginger and turmeric use on ancient cow teeth unearthed in Harappa, one of the largest Indus cities, located in Pakistan west of the border with India. Why would cattle be eating curry-style dishes? Weber notes that in the region today, people
often place leftovers outside their homes for wandering cows to munch on.The Harappan ruins also contain evidence of domesticated chickens,which were likely cooked in those tandoori-style ovens and eaten.And what would a proto-curry be without a side of rice? Many archaeologists once thought that Indus peoples were restricted to a few grains like wheat and barley. But Cambridge University archaeologist Jennifer Bates,part of a joint Indian-U.K. team, has been examining the relative abundance of various crops at two village sites near today’s Masudpur, also west of Delhi. She found that villagers cultivated a wide array of crops, including rice, lentils, and mung beans.we now know that curry is not only among the world’s most popular dishes; it also may be the oldest continuously prepared cuisine on the planet.
If you are having a proper Tamil or Indian lunch or dinner, there is good chance that your food will contain ginger or turmeric or lentils. You have rice or millet and maybe even a banana to top it off. If so, the food that we eat today is no different from the ones eaten by our ancestors who lived in the Indus-Saraswathi region, 4500 years back.
PART :13 WILL FOLLOW
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