Tang dynasty

As India's tomato prices fluctuate, see how it went from foreign food to culinary staple in less than a century

- VIR SANGHVI

If you have been following the furore over the price of tomatoes, you will note that reporters and political analysts often refer to tomatoes as a basic staple of Indian cooking and the food of the common man.

Yeah? Well, maybe.

The truth is that while tomatoes turn up in dishes all over India, they are not a traditional ingredient in Indian cuisines. There is some evidence that the Portuguese brought long tomatoes to India (That's one theory used to explain an early Indian name for the tomato: vilayati baingan). But they weren't used in most Indian cuisines for centuries.

The round red tomato only really makes an appearance in Indian culinary history around 1860 or so. KT Achaya, the late food historian, suggested that it was only after the British started planting tomatoes in India in the late 19th century (several centuries after the chilli became a staple) that Indians became familiar with it.

What this means is that, with the exception of dishes created in the 20th century, Indian cuisine does not depend on tomatoes. It's hard to find a recipe book written before Independence that mentions tomatoes. As the chef and gastronomic encyclopaedia Kunal Kapoor points out, rare is the home-cooking dish that cannot be made without tomatoes.