October 16, 2016: Indian food is one of the most popular and loved forms of food across the globe. Be it the tangy, spicy curries and the heavenly sweet dishes, literally everyone loves the Indian cuisine. Here are some interesting facts on the original and evolution of Indian food.

• India is known as The Land of Spices. No other country on the map produces as many types of spices as India does.

• Indian cuisine in deeply influenced by the Greek, Roman and Arab.

• The heavenly saffron was brought to India by Persian rulers around 500 BC.

• The basic ingredients of Indian cuisine like tomato, chilli and potato are not even Indian and have a Portuguese origin.

• It was also the Portuguese who gave us refined sugar. Before that, India depended on honey and fruits as sweeteners.

• The very mouth-watering chicken tikka, that we are so proud of, is actually not ours. It was first cooked in Glasgow, Scotland.

• There are currently more than 80,000 Indian restaurants in the US. The first one was opened in the 1960s.

• The food and eating methods of the early Indian civilisation are still a secret, as their ancient language has not been understood yet.

• Chutney is one of the best food inventions of India. The British loved it too and they named one of our chutneys as 'Major Grey's'. It is sold across India even today.

• Payasam in a popular south Indian sweet dish. A south Indian wedding is incomplete until this dish is served!

• Wazwan is a traditional Kashmiri dish in which the spices are boiled instead of being fried. This technique gives the dish a Central Asian touch.

• Pepper is rightly called the king of spices as it tastes well with almost anything!

• The 'dum' style of cooking has an interesting origin. The kingdom of Awadh was facing food shortage. To cook a large amount of food using minimal supplies, meals were cooked in big handis, sealed with dough. This is how dum pulao and dum biryani were invented.

• Indian food is divided into 3 categories- Saatvic ( vegetables, fruits and juices), Raajsic (Oily,spicy food) and Taamsic ( Meat, liquor and also garlic and onion). Saatvic food is considered good for the body and mind as it leads to higher stages of consciousness. Raajsic food is related to activity. Taamsic food is considered bad for the mind as it has a negative influence.

– by Pragya Arora of NewsGram. Twitter: @Wanderlust6400