Indian cuisine — Goan vinegar heat · 175

Spices bloomed in hot fat and poured over a dish. Chili is late (16th century) and now structural in many kitchens. Heat here outruns Thailand only because black pepper, mustard seed and chili stack; many dishes stay fragrant rather than red. The home pantry around Tadka and the labour behind Masala dosa rarely fit a takeaway box.

Restaurant Indian cuisine is one register. Home pots and market stalls are others. Authenticity is a marketing word; technique is not. भारतीय व्यंजन is the local name used in this atlas beside Indian cuisine. Indian cuisine is a family of regional systems that share tadka (spices bloomed in fat), dal, yogurt and pickle. A Tamil breakfast of idli-sambar and a Punjabi tandoor dinner are not versions of one gravy.

Street India — chaat, vada pav, kolkata rolls, Hyderabad biryani stalls — is a full cuisine. The overseas "curry house" is a real British-Indian dialect, not a replica of Lucknow or Madurai. Indian cuisine is organised by dahi / achar / idli batter and rice / roti / dosa. The south ferments rice and lentil batters; the north bakes bread in tandoors. Bengal butters fish in mustard; Gujarat builds sweet-savoury vegetarian thalis; Hyderabad and Lucknow keep a Mughal rice-and-meat court.