I recently travelled to India and I had the most incredible time. The biggest part of my travels was the amazing food.

As you may know, I am vegan so this post is going to talk about my experience travelling through India as a vegan…

India is made up a combination of religions which have influenced its culture. 80 percent of the population in India practice Hinduism and 15 percent practice Islam and the remaining 5 percent practice Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism…

I found most interesting the practice of Jainism. The belief system strongly pushes for non-violence and this extends to their diet. Therefore, all followers of Jainism are vegetarians. In Jainism, vegetarianism is defined as no animal flesh, eggs and milk but it also extends to not eating root vegetables as they believe microorganism are harmed in the uprooting.

I was really inspired by the motivation for this which was compassion for all living things.

Least to say, I found it quite easy to be a vegan in India. As Hinduism is the predominant Hindu religion, the food in India is primarily vegetarian. This was fantastic as for once all meals on the menu minus paneer were suitable options. It was actually hard to be faced with so many dishes to choose from.

Some of my favourite dishes were the street food I had such as banana Fry. Banana fry is a fried banana which I enjoyed for breakfast whilst waiting for my train. It simply was yummy and nostalgic as the Nigerian Plantain.

This is me at the train station in my happy place, eating Yummy Banana Fry with a good book.

I also did a cooking class in Udaipur where I learnt to make; Masala Chai, Samosas, Palak minus Paneer, Dal Fry, Okra & Seasonal vegetable, Jeera rice and Chapatti.

Some of my other dishes were;

• Aloo palak: spinach with potato
• Aloo Gobi: potato with cauliflower
• Mushroom Matar – I had this meal in my first couple days in India and I ate this dish the most on my trip. I just loved the vegetable dish with peas and mushroom.
• Stir fry mushroom – This will always remind me of my flight delay and being stranded at the airport till Indigo airlines were so lovely to arrange accommodation at a nearby hotel where I experienced this wonderful dish. Literally will always remind me to think of the silver linings
• Saga Aloo–  It potato and spinach. Spinach is my favourite food so I don’t think anyone would be surprised to find this on my list

My only regret is not getting the recipe of one of my favourite meals on my travels – battered cauliflower curry. If anyone knows what this might be – please feel free to send me your recipe.

To appease that craving, I will be attempting to make barbeque wings with battered cauliflower. Watch this space for updates on this.

I am looking forward to sharing my experience re-creating my tastes of India.

Watch this space for my food diaries.