Jyoti Prakash Tamang - Ethnic Fermented Foods and Beverages of India: Science History and Culture

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India has one of the oldest civilizations in the world with vast history, food culture, bio-resources, and diverse ethnicity. India is administratively divided into 28 states and 9 union territories and is the worlds second largest populated country with >120 billion people speaking more than 1652 languages, 216 dialects, and 23 official languages. Ethnic food has a cultural connotation in India and linked to diverse ethnicity which represents the traits of wisdom and knowledge of ancient Indian people on culinary and also on the right choice of bio-actively enriched balance diets sinceRig Vedicperiod around 1500 BCE to 1000 BCE. Gastronomy of Indian ethic foods is based onVedicfood habits with adoption of some Mughal and English cuisines, the present-day Indian foods of more than 2000 diverse ethnic groups of people are unparalleled and unique to each other. It is remarkable to note that unlike many countries India has more than 350 diverse types of major or common and minor or region-specific ethnic fermented foods and beverages (234 fermented foods, 84 alcoholic beverages, and 32 traditionally prepared amylolytic starters) which are traditionally prepared and consumed by ethnic people of India for 5000 years. Indian gastronomy and culinary with huge diversity of ethnic foods are always pride of our rich dietary culture and heritage.

This book has 23 chapters covering different types of ethnic fermented foods and alcoholic beverages of all states of India. I am grateful to all contributing authors and co-authors who accepted our invitation to write this book. I could bring all of them in the same platform who have been working on various aspects of Indian fermented foods and beverages. I am also grateful to Springer Nature for publishing this comprehensive book on Indian ethnic foods. We hope this book will be read by researchers, students, teachers, nutritionists, dieticians, food entrepreneurs, agriculturalist, government policy makers, ethnologists, sociologists, and electronic media persons who keep interest on the health benefits of fermented foods and beverages. This bookEthnic Fermented Foods and Beverages of India: Science History and Cultureis the first of this kind on compilation of various ethnic fermented foods and alcoholic beverages of India.

I dedicate this book to our ancestors who invented the technology, knowledge, wisdom, and skill of food fermentation and created the platform of ethno-microbiology for research to study in depth of metagenomics and determination of bioactive molecules in ethnic fermented foods and beverages contributing health benefits to the consumers.