Everyday eating for a young British Asian family

[nomadicwriter]

My main character is an eleven-year-old boy living in modern-day England; his parents are second generation Brits of Punjabi Hindu family background. I'm just trying to get a rough idea of what sort of thing they might eat at home, in terms of family meals, what kind of snacks they'd have in the house, what he might be given in his packed lunches

Comments

[philomytha]

I instantly thought of the cookbook 'Cooking like Mummyji'. Not sure it's specifically Punjabi, but it is a cookbook specifically aimed at the second-gen and later British Asian home cookery market, and it describes some of the ways British dishes are adapted to Indian preferences and Indian dishes adapted to the kind of ingredients you can find in Tesco. The author has a website with a selection of the recipes from it here: http://www.vickybhogal.com/recipes.html

[nomadicwriter]

Ooh, thanks! A little poking around identifies the author as Punjabi Sikh, so that's quite close to what I'm looking for.

[wordsofastory]

The Indians I know living in the West seem to mostly eat Indian food at home, particularly in regards to what they cook as opposed to pre-made foods like chips or ice cream or whatever, though they might also cook Western-style, and usually eat Western food outside of the house. Given that these are Hindus, they might also be vegetarian. Not 100% of Western Hindus are vegetarian, but it's much more common than among Muslims. Depending on the individual, they might not eat any meat, they might eat only eggs, they might eat chicken, they might eat anything except beef, or they might eat all meats. Another thing I know Indian people to do is not eat meat in their home, but be willing to eat it in restaurants or other places. There's a lot of variation depending on an individual's personality and feelings about trying to Westernize vs stay Indian.

[nomadicwriter]

Thanks! There definitely seems to be so much variation among individuals that I thought it was best to come here and ask for people's own experiences, since what information I could find with Google was full of things like articles firmly stating that Indian people would never use the word "curry" at home and then people in the comments declaring that actually, their grandmother's been calling it curry for decades and so on.

[silentg_canada]

I actually stayed with a Punjabi Hindu family over Diwali about 20 years ago. IIRC the mum (of two young children) was literally cooking ALL DAY. She had chai on all day, she made us chana bhatura with deep fried bread for breakfast, several curries and lots of deep fried stuff for lunch (the only ones I recognised were tikkis and samosas), and a bunch of other curries for dinner. She hardly used dairy at all, except in the saag paneer. She made stuffed naan, subji, something with tomato sauce (I know a lot of curries but I didn't recognise it), and something with crushed deep fried lentils in a paste.

E2A: Also, lots and lots of garlic!! And onions - she had a 50lb bag of onions on the floor of the kitchen. And rice wasn't a major part of the meal... and there were like 4 mains with every lunch & dinner.

[nomadicwriter]

Thanks! I'm thinking my character's mum is going to be a bit less of a dedicated cook than that, but it's great to have some specifics.