A meal’s wholesomeness also depends on the table manners. Manners are the social rituals that make a meal worthwhile. Table manners are social etiquettes border on our traditions. They are also fine blend of different traditions because India has had many invasions. Also, there are certain religious beliefs, traditions and practices that are involved tailored with the political beliefs that so far has greatly influenced the Indian food traditions. This also sheds light on the significant mutual bonding between different traditions in India and food cultures are nothing but the extension of the same. Furthermore, in India, all the dishes are entailed with a dessert of a sweet dish which is considered blissful. Here are some of such food traditions in India that you won’t know:

Eating with hands:

Our five fingers represent five elements and this practice ignites them. This also helps make digestion easy by activating five digestive juices. Going by the teaching of the Vedas, this practice benefits our chakras and using hands helps stimulate our blood circulation too. The nerves ending at the tip of our fingers send signal to our stomach so that we get better taste, texture and aroma of the food.

Serving on banana leaves:

Banana leaves contain a lot of polyphenols which are the antioxidants that stop diabetes from afflicting you. It also keeps other cardiovascular diseases at bay. When the warm food is served on banana leaf, the integration helps secrete several nutrients that help make digestion easier. The practice was first commenced in Kerala and immediately became popular in the whole southern belt. The water that is sprinkled on the Banana leaf before serving the food is an act of purification. In fact, many hotels also serve food on banana leaf for the over-all well being of the guests.

Eating on the floor:

This practice is a massive hit among the rural areas of India where people prefer to sit on the floor on a wooden pedestal and eat. This is because the repeated bending of the spine for bringing the food to the mouth improves the blood circulation along with improving the metabolism.

Indian thali:

There are stipulated thalis available in significant parts of India such as Rajasthan, Kerala, West Bengal, Kashmir and Gujarat. The local thalis are fashioned in a manner that the food suit the environmental condition of the said place. The archaic home-made platters are no longer there but still whatever commercialized versions are available, are packed with protein, Vitamin, healthy fat and carbohydrate.

Serving milk in the wedding night:

This is a widely circulated ritual pan India which symbolizes power. Of course, it stimulates the reproductive tissues being a good aphrodisiac. It also helps boost your immunity and of course, easily digested and absorbed.

These  are the fairly intriguing stories behind the different food traditions of India.

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Names of the countries – History is always interesting and people, who are sucker for it, will never find their wanderlust satiated.

If you are one of them and travelling to different places in the quest for knowledge, we will give you names of the countries that really have interesting stories behind the naming of them.

Like India derived its name from the assortment of river Indus and the Old Persian word Hindu hence called ‘The people of the Indus’ then India, the below mentioned countries too have pretty intriguing history behind their names:

Names of the countries –

1 – America:

America derived its name from Amerigo Vespucci who happens to be an Italian explorer who challenged the concept that Columbus invented America. He rather said that where Columbus sailed in 1942 was a different part of the continent.

2 – Kenya:

Kenya derived its name from Mount Kenya which was given by Dr. Johann Ludwig Krapf. He was a German missionary to see Mount Kenya for the first time in the year 1849, a year after the discovery of Kilimanjaro.

3 – Argentina:

The name is derived from a Spanish adjective meaning ‘Silvery’ which is traditionally called Argentine in English, in Latin American Spanish, it is called Argentum, the feminine meaning of ‘Silver’ which has as Greek-Hellenic meaning.

4 – Australia:

The Dutch navigators pointed out Northern, Western and Southern coasts of the place during 17^th century and named the continent ‘New Holland’, thereafter an English explorer Matthew Flinders gave it the name Australia.

5 – Turkey:

The name Turkey derived from the medieval Latin Turchia . The Ottaman Empire that ruled in Turkey was generally referred to as Turkish empire and the name perhaps stemmed from that.

6 – Singapore:

Singapore gets its name from Singa Pora which means the lion city in Sanskrit. It was previously called Temasek where a Sumatran Prince called Sang Nila descended and saw a lion called ‘Singa’ so he named the island ‘Singapura’.

7 – Pakistan:

Pakistan was previously named as Pakstan by Choudhry Rahmat Ali who was a movement activist therein. In the aftermath, it was named Pakistan because it is the land of Paks, a homeland of Punjab, Afghania, Iran, Sindh, Tukharistan, Afghanistan, and Balochistan.

8 – Bangladesh:

Bangladesh was called East Pakistan before its independence from Pakistan. After Indian independence in the year 1947, it was separated with Pakistan by the Radcliffe line and in the year 1971, Bengali speaking people in East Pakistan revolted against Urdu being the national language and fought for a different country altogether which is now called Bangladesh and Bengali is the national language there.

9 – Germany:

Germany is still called Deutschland in the otherwise, which means ‘of the people’. It formed a central part of the holy Roman Empire in the beginning of the 10^th century which later called Germany having derived its name from Latin Germania.

These are the stories behind the Names of the countries – Hope it fed fat your GK a little.

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