Punjab has been ranked as the 7th best food region globally in the recently announced Taste Atlas Awards 2024-25. The prestigious food and travel guide released its list of the “100 Best Food Regions in the World,” with Punjab leading as the highest-ranked Indian entry.
Punjab Food
Sarson da Saag and Makke di Roti are at the core of Punjabi cuisine. Sarson da Saag is a filling curry made with mustard greens that is slow-cooked with flavorful spices. It becomes the ideal comfort food, especially in the cold winter months, when paired with Makke di Roti, a golden, crispy cornmeal flatbread. Punjabi food, abroad is synonymous with Indian food. People abroad are more familiar with Punjabi cuisine than with any other Indian cuisine.
Traditional lunch of Punjab farmer, Sarson da Saag, Makki di rotti, Dahi, Ghar da makhan, Hari mirch, Piyaaz, Nimbu da acchar and Lassi. pic.twitter.com/VLNTsrfd3N
— Glorious Punjabis Globally (@GloriousPunjab1) June 29, 2019
The rich Punjabi cuisine also has Tandoori Murgh, smoky grilled chicken marinated in a mixture of spices, and Amritsari Kulcha, a buttery, stuffed flatbread baked to perfection in a tandoor. Next is Shahi Paneer, which is creamy and royal, made of paneer, and Saag Paneer, soft cubes of paneer in a comforting spinach curry. Famous restaurants such as Kesar da Dhaba, Bharawan Da Dhaba, and Bade Bhai ka Brothers Dhaba in Amritsar and Haveli in Jalandhar were also featured in this report for their work to preserve the culinary legacy of the region.
The regions with the highest average scores are highlighted in the rankings, which are based on 477,287 valid ratings for 15,478 foods in the Taste Atlas database. Italy’s Campania is ranked first in the world, followed by Greece’s Peloponnese and Italy’s Emilia-Romagna.
10 Delicious Vegetarian Dishes from Punjab
1. Aloo Parantha pic.twitter.com/i2NG5U33J3
— Colours of Bharat (@ColoursOfBharat) November 17, 2023
Other Indian State (cities) Ranked
Not just Punjabi cuisine, the rankings also include Southern India (ranked 59th), West Bengal (ranked 54th), and Maharashtra (ranked 41st) in India.
Popular dishes like misal pav, pav bhaji, aamras, and shrikhand were celebrated in Maharashtra. Some of the must-try dishes in Mumbai are Bhel puri, Pav bhaji, Vada pav, and Ragda pattice, as mentioned on the website of Taste Atlas. Some of the iconic traditional restaurants of the city are Ram Ashraya. Shree Thaker Bhojanalay, Cafe Madras, etc.
West Bengal gained popularity with the addition of chingri malai curry, shorshe ilish, ras malai, and kathi rolls, and Southern India is impressed by the variety of Hyderabadi biryani, madras curry, and masala dosa. New Delhi was ranked 45th and Hyderabad was ranked 50th worldwide. Kolkata occupied the 71st position, while Chennai occupied the 75th.
While many may not agree on it, Indian cuisine as a whole ranked 12th in the “100 Best Cuisines in the World. The others on the list that ranked higher than India are Greece, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Indonesia, France, Japan, China, and Poland.
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