Tiffin

Tiffin is an Indian English word for a type of meal. It can refer to the midday luncheon or, in some regions of the Indian subcontinent, a between meal snack [1], or in South Indian usage, a light breakfast.[2] When used in place of the word "lunch", it does not necessarily mean a light meal.[3]

History and etymology

In the British Raj, where the British custom of afternoon tea was supplanted by the Indian practice of having a light meal at that hour, it came to be called tiffin.[4] It is derived from English colloquial or slang tiffing meaning to take a little drink, and had by 1867 become naturalised among Anglo-Indians in the north of the country to mean luncheon.[5]

Today

Two dabbawalas in Mumbai delivering meals packed in tiffin carriers

In South India and in Nepal, tiffin is generally a snack between meals: dosas, idlis, vadas etc.[6] In other parts of India, such as Mumbai, the word mostly refers to a packed lunch of some sort.[7] In Mumbai, it is often delivered to them by dabbawalas, sometimes known as tiffin wallahs, who use a complex system to get thousands of tiffin-boxes to their destinations. In Mumbai, a school-going child's lunch box is fondly called a tiffin box.[8]

Tiffin often consists of rice, lentils, curry, vegetables, chapatis or "spicy meats".[9] In addition, the lunch boxes are themselves called tiffin carriers, tiffin-boxes or just tiffins.

See also

Notes

    1. ↑ OED staff 2013, "tiffin, n.".
    2. ↑ Purnachand, G V. "History of Traditional Telugu Food Culture: A new interpretation". Dr. G. V. Purnachand, B.A.M.S. Dr. G V Purnachand, B.A.M.S. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
    3. ↑ Murray 2008, p. 88.
    4. ↑ Quinion 2006, Tiffin.
    5. ↑ OED staff 2013, "tiffin, n."cites H. Wedgwood (1862) "Tiffin, now naturalised among Anglo-Indians in the sense of luncheon, is the North country tiffing (properly sipping)". See also Wedgwood 1872, p. 682.
    6. ↑ Hughes, Mookherjee & Delacy 2001, p. 25.
    7. ↑ Harding 2002.
    8. ↑ Thakker 2005.
    9. ↑ Murray 2008, pp. 85–108.

    References

    • Harding, Luke (29 October 2002), "A Bombay lunchbox", The Guardian
    • Hughes, Martin; Mookherjee, Sheema; Delacy, Richard (2001), India (illustrated ed.), Lonely Planet, p. 25, ISBN 978-1-86450-328-9
    • Murray, Sarah (2008), Moveable Feasts: From Ancient Rome to the 21st Century, the Incredible Journeys of the Food We Eat (illustrated ed.), Macmillan, pp. 85–108, ISBN 978-0-312-42814-3
    • OED staff (2013), "tiffin, n.", Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.), Oxford University
    • Quinion, Michael (2 September 2006) [2003], World Wide Words: Tiffin, worldwidewords.org
    • Thakker, Pradip (11 November 2005), Bombay's amazing dabbawalas, archived from the original on 9 February 2008
    • Wedgwood, H. (1872), A Dictionary of English Etymology (second ed.), p. 682
    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.