The queen of vegetarian cooking. Image source: daily mail. co. uk

thumbnail_article-2488798-193D274B00000578-265_306x363.jpg

article-2488798-193D274B00000578-265_306x363.jpg

Being vegetarian in a group of devout non-vegetarians means that you've accepted that every time you order veg *biriyani*, someone will clear their throat and say- it's *pulao,* no such thing as a veg *biriyani.*

To the vegetarians' disdain, every person who's lived abroad tells them that it is impossible to survive on vegetarian goods there because all you'll get is leaves and vegetables. The concept of *paneer* doesn't exist so there's no way you guys could survive.

Poor vegetarians of the world can only imagine what caused them to be the butt of all jokes and recipients of such pity from the ones who have incorporated meat in their diets.

I remember when I told my dad I wanted to cook exciting food, but vegetarian food is just *daal,* *paneer,* and vegetables so it could never be exciting. That's when I was introduced to the world of vegetarian cooking carefully and extensively curated by Tarla Dalal.

> In 1966, Tarla started giving lessons in cooking from home. What must have been a passion project culminated into a success story that taught scores of people to cook. Tarla Dalal managed to do the impossible: she made vegetarian cooking fun and creative.
> 

Aside from cooking delicious food and teaching millions of people the nuances of cooking, her skill lay in creating vegetarian versions of non-vegetarian dishes, thereby opening the whole world to experience vegetarian cuisine at its finest.

> If you visit her website, you'll see that there are recipes for more than 17,000 vegetarian dishes that you could choose from. Tarla Dalal curated recipes for special occasions, cuisines, courses, cooking methods, the equipment that would be used for cooking, and ingredients. She knew that children are the most difficult to impress. Keeping this in mind, she created a whole section devoted to food that the little munchkins could enjoy.
> 

Tarla created food that was healthy and tasty. *The Pleasures of Indian Cooking,* her first cookbook, was her shot to fame and since then, her recipes were published in more than 25 magazines, wrote more than 100 books, and sold more than 10 million copies. 

> Her efforts and contributions were recognised and she received the Padma Bhushan in 2007, making her the first and only Indian from the food industry to have been conferred with this honour.
> 

Not only did she bring different dishes to Indian cuisine, but she also revived some forgotten recipes. Tarla saw food as a means of bringing people together, and she succeeded. She did many cooking shows and connected to her audiences. Her sweet demeanour, passion for cooking, and smile made cooking less of a chore and more of a well-liked activity.

Thanks to Tarla Dalal, people can now enjoy cooking, learn to cook new dishes, appreciate the simplicity of vegetarian cuisine that also utilizes complex techniques, and vegetarians can finally heave a sigh of relief. Even though Tarla Dalal is no more, but her work is available everywhere. If someone tries to mock vegetarians about the limited variety in the cuisine, they can whip out one of the scrumptious dishes from Tarla Dalal's many cookbooks.

Cooking is an art. Though everyone can learn to cook, not all can excel at it. Ghar ka khana is often underrated by most people. But one woman made that same ghar ka khana exciting, and thanks to her, there's greater in variety in food today. 