After Centuries, the Vegetarian Feast of India Finally Arrives

NY Times - Dining & Wine: "India has the most varied vegetarian cooking in the world, and it has been thousands of years in the making. Now, finally, it is also widely available and authentically prepared in restaurants across New York City.

Religion, economics, demographics and geography conspired early on to make India one of the most prolifically cultivated regions on earth. Today, there are about 220 million strict vegetarians in India, according to the Anthropological Survey of India. Indian Hindus, Buddhists and Jains all aspire to an ideal of ahimsa, or nonviolence, that prohibits the killing of anything living or with the potential for life (hence, Indian vegetarians eat dairy products but not eggs). Traditionally in India, cooking is intimately entwined with purity, spirituality and caste.

Pizza is still a staple for New York's Indian-Americans, especially young ones. Singas Famous Pizza, originally a Greek-owned family storefront in Elmhurst, Queens, has become a six-store franchise with a cult following. The distinctive Singas tomato sauce is heavily dosed with fresh jalapeños. The owner of the Hicksville franchise, Jai Jeyasri, said that about 40 percent of his customers are Indian. "Singas pizza is even too spicy for me," he said. "But I like a mysore dosa."