Ancient Indian Food

Ancient Indian Food: An Overview


People in ancient India subsisted on food that was conveniently available from Nature. The nomads preferred fruits, fist, wild berries and meat as their main food. With the arrival of civilization, the Indians took up agriculture as their occupation, and used grains, pulses and other agricultural products as their main food items. Most of the ancient people consume rice as their staple food. Other ancient Indian food included meat, vegetables, fruits and cooked lentils. Apart from rice and vegetables, the ancient Indians also preferred wheat products as their staple food. They made breads or 'chapattis' from wheat.


Ancient Indian Food: Dairy Products


As far as the ancient Indian cuisines are concerned, milk and other dairy products are preferred by the Indians since ancient times. Curd, made from milk, was eaten with rice. People even stopped eating beef during Gupta Period ( About 650 AD), and began worshiping cows as mother.

More facts on Ancient Indian Food


Ancient India was also influenced by the food habits of the neighboring countries. Eating of Chicken was not common in India. Our country adopted the concept of cooking chicken from Thailand. The concept of cooking chicken came from Thailand while the art of mutton cooking came from West Asia. The food habit of ancient Indians did not changed with the Aryan invasion of the country.


Indian Food During Islamic Period


During the Islamic period, pork preparations were stripped off from the ancient Indian food recipes .The Indian people stopped having pork because consumption of pork is prohibited in Koran.


However, in the later years, most of the people became vegetarians hough some still had sheep chicken and goat. Among the vegetarian food, the following were most common in ancient India:


Rice accompanied with vegetables and curd
Flabreads accompanied with vegetables