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PO Box A524
Sydney South NSW 1235, Level 11, 227 Elizabeth Street Sydney NSW 2000

Telephone: 1800 812 164

© 2024 Opportunity International AustraliaABN 83 003 805 043

Food For Thought: Ingredients of India

By Stephanie Hristovska

In a subcontinent that is home to more than 1 billion people, India has managed to preserve a lot of its traditional cuisine over the centuries. And not only that, each region in India displays its own style of cooking and distinct flavours.

Take Beesamma’s chicken dopaiza curry for example – a dish hailing from the city of Hyderabad in Southern India. In Hyderabadi cuisine, the method of preparation and herbs and spices used often influence the name of a dish. Dopaiza literally means ‘onions are added twice’.

After her husband passed away, Beesamma used a small loan of Rs.8,000 (A$170) to expand her cooking stall to sell a wider variety of chicken dishes to locals. She can now make Rs.200 ($4.25) a day, which is four times her previous income.

Growing her business, Beesamma was able to purchase the cooking stand she previously rented, as well as provide regular meals for her two children and send them to school.

I never knew that earning your daily bread is such a tough job. But after my husband passed away, I learned how to be independent and strong.

Ingredients to make papad, the northern Indian name for what we know as papadums – vary from region to region. In Lucknow, a city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Mira Devi fries lentil powder to make this wafer-thin flatbread. In the south, other ingredients are commonly used to make papadums, such as chickpeas, black gram or rice flour.

Mira Devi was able to use a loan of Rs.12,000 (A$255) to make papad in bulk and hire other women in her community so they could earn an income as well. Going from earning Rs.4,500 (A$96) a month to Rs.11,000 (A$234) a month, Mira Devi can now afford for her four children to regularly attend school. She has even started saving so she can send her son and daughter to university one day.

Join us for dinner in Sydney on 20 August at Subcontinental for your own taste of Indian cuisine as part of our Food for Thought campaign. This fantastic restaurant offers a modern take on Indian flavours in the latest culinary venue from Sam Christie and the team from Longrain.

The dinner will also tell you more about Food for Thought, where supporters like yourselves can host food-related events in September or October to raise much-needed funds to help families like Beesamma’s and Mira Devi’s leave poverty behind. Find out more here.

We hope to see you there!

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