Most Indian sweets have too much sugar or jaggery. Bu that is changing. These days one does get sweets which are moderately sweet and more complex in taste. This is particularly true of traditional payas. Incidentally one needs to study the food habits of ancient Indians and how it changed over the centuries. Making claims without the knowledge of culinary history does not help. This is especially true of the deep south where one could find sweets ( or other dishes) which have remained unchanged for well over a thousand years served in highly traditional weddings and on religious occasions.
Quite a few of these are vegan as well. Though many do have milk.
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IMHO, although Indian cuisine is superior to European cuisine in areas of a staggering variety of flavors, low carbon footprint and freshness of ingredients, European desserts beat the pants off Indian desserts. Most Indian-Americans eat them out of nostalgia and tradition, preferring cake or ice cream instead. There are exceptions, like soanpapdi, but overall the desire to make Indian sweets is more out of nostalgia than taste.
One of the reasons that dessert is not well developed in Indian cuisine is the availability of freshly picked tropical fruits, which taste far better and are more nutritious than any prepared dessert. That’s why Indians LOVE their MANGOES! :)
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@Mon Yes as an african person I understand everything you are saying about sweets. Us also treats sweets as a nostalgia thing . But desserts ? Whatever fruits in season , if not ... there is no such a thing as desserts. Where I come from the most popular fruits in season dessert is litchi, its season is around Christmas time... oh yes!
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Great story- to be clear most of these desserts originated in northern India (UP) around the time of the Mughals, the Muslim rulers of India in the 16th century thru the 19th century. The Persian and Turkic influences in many of the best desserts of the Mughal empire are not lost in today’s Indian/Pakistani cuisine.
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I absolutely love that this woman has competed on master chef and now has a cookbook but has stuck with those Corelle plates. Staying true to the Gujarati way. :)
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That is hilarious. I’m Indian and had a housewarming party and got 10 sets of Corelle. We keep the company in business. Of course, the leftovers were packed up in clean empty Damon containers..
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I’d like to see more recipes. I have celiac disease and got the impression that many of the sweets may be naturally gluten free!
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I'm so thrilled to see more cookbook reviews that are representative of cuisine that is something besides American! And this is very timely as Indian food becomes more "mainstream".
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Indian desserts are amazing, there’s a plethora to pick from. Each state and region has at least a 100, so think around 2500 plus varieties. The base could be milk, nuts, chickpea flour, whole wheat, white flour, gourd, carrots, sugar, palm sugar, jaggery.. the list is endless. Even the Wikipedia page doesn’t list all of them. What irritates me is the limited dessert menu in every Indian restaurant- gulab jamun, mango kulfi and rice pudding- which makes every non-Indian person shrug off our desserts. I am looking forward to this book popularizing and educating the culinary world about what is probably the largest dessert repertoire in any cuisine.
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