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References: Food and the Table

  1. Eight-in-ten Indians limit meat in their diets, and four-in-ten consider themselves vegetarian - Pew Research Center (2021) - The source for this chapter's vegetarianism numbers, from a survey of nearly 30,000 Indian adults. It breaks the results down by religion and explains rules about beef, pork and root vegetables.

  2. For people from South Asia, mornings are often powered by chai - NPR, Diaa Hadid (2026) - A radio story reported from Karachi on how British tea companies marketed tea to South Asians in the 1930s and how people turned it into milky, spiced chai.

  3. Chai as a Colonial Creation: The British Empire's Cultivation of Tea as a Popular Taste and Habit Among South Asians - Nayantara Arora, Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal 21(1) - A student research article, free to read, that uses plantation records and old advertisements to show how tea drinking was promoted in colonial India. A good model for your own history research.

  4. Chili: Small Fruit Sets Global Palettes on Fire - YaleGlobal Online, Yale University (2004) - Traces the chili pepper from the Americas around the world, including the Portuguese role in bringing it to India.

  5. International Year of Millets 2023 - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Explains why the UN named 2023 the Year of Millets and why these hardy grains matter for dry regions and a changing climate.

  6. Inside the world's largest free kitchen at Punjab's Golden Temple, feeding 100,000 daily - The National, Taniya Dutta (2023) - A look inside the langar at the Golden Temple in Amritsar: the volunteers, the vegetarian menu and the rule that everyone eats together.

  7. Columbian exchange - Wikipedia - An overview of the plants, animals and diseases that moved between the Americas and the rest of the world after 1492, with links to Alfred Crosby's original work.

  8. Thali - Wikipedia - Describes thali meals in different regions, the katori bowls, and related meals such as the banana-leaf feasts of South India. Follow its citations to regional cookbooks and food histories.

  9. Rasgulla - Wikipedia - Lays out the competing Odisha and Bengal histories of the rasgulla and the 2017 and 2019 Geographical Indication decisions discussed in the Whose Story? box.