How to Eat: Indian food

Exploring Indian street food: How to eat

This is the first in a series in which Aparita Bhandari explores how to eat the diverse foods available in Toronto.

This is the first in a weekly series in which reporter Aparita Bhandari explores how to eat the different cuisines that make up Toronto’s diverse culinary landscape.

There’s a lot of foods I don’t know how to eat. But to kick off this series, I thought I’d start with one that I know well: Indian food. I moved to Toronto from India in 1998 and grew up eating Indian food, with my hands — the way it is meant to be eaten.

It’s a practice that gets a bad rap. Some see it as unsanitary. In 2012, when Oprah Winfrey visited India to dine with a family in Mumbai for an Oprah’s Next Chapter special, she said, “I heard some Indian people eat with their hands still.” That comment, and much of Winfrey’s visit to India, was criticized for presenting stereotypes and clichés.

Indian food, for the most part, is meant to be eaten with your hands. At home, I regularly abandon the use of spoons, knives and forks, especially when either my husband or I have forgotten to run the dishwasher. And I use my hands to eat everything from roti (Indian bread) and sabzi (vegetables) to daal (lentils) and rice. When I am at a restaurant, I’ll typically use a spoon to eat daal and rice, but any type of Indian bread is best eaten with your hands.

So when I went to meet Kiran Rai, an Indian actor, fellow food enthusiast and YouTube personality known as “Kayray” to share a meal, it was more to explore why we continue to use our hands to eat Indian food.

[lapismosi]

This was one of the better videos as it actually showed how to place it in mouth correctly, well one did and one didn't. But, I learned a little about how it should look but she only took two bites.

[JaredDHeaps]

In my travels, I had been told to never use your left hand to touch the plate or dish. Is that not the case? I noticed that you touch the side of your dish.

[jew]

This is good because I have Indian food and I want to know the culture of Indian food people.

[gilbertoesquivel]

Thank God with Indian food their is no right way or wrong way...It's like Mexican food, eat it how your soul tells you to. I've seen Indians who eat with utensils. I've seen people eat it by scooping their food with their bread or going all in with hand only...It's all about enjoying the delicious food and good company...

[AnnetteCompean]

how Mexicans eat their food with tortillas!!

[lacachis]

Us Mexicans eat sometimes only eat with tortillas👍🏼😋

[roopeshnandale]

Please use all five fingers... Don't fold first finger... And hope you have cleaned your hand well before start eating... Eating with hand is Dirt fot those who don't follow washing hand regular. 😜 Hope you got what I mean.
Rest all videos is good n cool. You both looking beautiful specially indian in saree.

[ranjanavaidya]

दो बाते आपको याद करनी जरूरी है ... वो यह है .... खाना बनाते समय और खाना खाते समय अपने सरपर जो बाल है उन्हे अच्छे से बांधा जाता है ताकी खाने मे और खाते समय बाल थाली मे ना आए .... पता नही आप दोनोंको यह बात समझेगी की नही ? ... हिंदी पढ भी सकते है की नही ?