Thali (meaning "plate" or "tray") or Bhojanam (meaning "full meal") is a round platter used to serve food in

South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

and the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. Thali is also used to refer to an Indian-style meal made up of a selection of various dishes which are served on a platter.

Thali Thali (meaning "plate" or "tray") or Bhojanam (meaning "full meal") is a round Platter (dishware), platter used to serve food in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. Thali is also used to refer to an Indian-style meal made up of a sel ...

is also used in south Asia for ceremonial purposes.

History

Early history

According to archeologist Bindeshwari Prasad Sinha, dish-on-stand and simple dishes belonging to the

Indus Valley Civilization The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE ...

may be regarded as the prototype of Indian dishes as thalis but these do not have accompanying bowls commonly seen with thalis. According to Sinha the distinctive thali accompanying bowls instead appears in the

Painted Grey Ware culture The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age in India, Iron Age Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan Archaeological culture, culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conve ...

. Archeologist B.B. Lal similarly suggests food was eaten from the

Painted Grey Ware The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age Indo-Aryan culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conventionally dated 1200 to 600–500 BCE, or from 1300 to 500–300 BCE. It is a suc ...

dishes and bowls. B.B Lal notes that "typical dinner set in the Painted Grey Ware consists of the thali (dish), katora (bowl) and lota (drinking vessel)," he suggests it highlights the tradition followed today. Earliest textual sources on thali comes from Ayurveda Samhitas, Sangam and medieval period Indian cookbooks. A chapter in ancient

Sushruta Samhita The ''Sushruta Samhita'' (, ) is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and one of the most important such treatises on this subject to survive from the ancient world. The ''Compendium of Sushruta, Suśruta'' is one of the foundational texts of ...

text is dedicated to dining etiquette, method of serving food and proper placement of each dish before the diner, it is the earliest known textual evidence on thali presentation. This dining and serving etiquette from

is also adopted in medieval Indian cookbooks with some variations. The

Manasollasa The ' also known as ''Abhilashitartha Chintamani'', is an early 12th-century Sanskrit text composed by the Kalyani Chalukya king Someshvara III, who ruled in present-day Karnataka. It is an encyclopedic work covering topics such as polity, gove ...

texts chapter ''Annabhoga'' describes dining etiquette, method of serving food and the way in which district officers and other nobles should be treated at dinner in the court. The ''Ksemakutuhalam'' culinary text advises the cook to serve boiled rice in the middle of the plate. Pulse, meat, vegetables and fish are placed (in that order) on the right, and broths, drinks, water and pickles on the left. In Ayurvedic tradition, six tastes known as ''Shadrasa'' is used to classify foods according to their qualities for ideal meal. These six tastes include; sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter, astringent. Thali presentation often includes all six of these flavors.

Foreign accounts

Greek ambassador

Megasthenes Megasthenes ( ; , died 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, indologist, diplomat, ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book '' Indica'', which is now lost, but has been partially reconstructe ...

in his work '' Indica'' notes the dining manners of

Mauryan Empire The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia with its power base in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around c. 320 BCE, it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE. The primary sourc ...

court: Portuguese ambassador Domingo Paes who visited the court of

Vijayanagar Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Kingdom, was a late medieval Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, belonging to ...

notes: Portuguese ambassador Duarte Barbosa in coastal trading town of

Kozhikode Kozhikode (), also known as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. Known as the City of Spices, Kozhikode is listed among the City of Literature, UNESCO's Cities of Literature. It is the nineteenth large ...

in Kerala notes the way local chieftains dined: Meera Mukherjee suggests tripod or three-footed stool may have been similar to ''"Mukkali"'' stool, a type of vernacular furniture more commonly found in southern parts of India. While Chowki, Palagai or Bajot, a four-legged stool are more commonly used with thali today.

Kansa metal

Thalis are traditionally made with Kansa metal, a mixture of

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

and

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

. Although it is similar to bronze, Kansa has higher

content than bronze. The fifth chapter of the text '' Rasaratna Samuchaya'' is dedicated to Kansa with significant information about Kansa kitchenware, diningware and its benefits.

Thali/Bhojanam meal

''Thali'' refers to the metal plate that a thali meal may be served on, while ''Bhojanam'' refers to full meals. Thali is popular method of serving meals in South Asia. The idea behind a thali is to offer different flavours of sweet, salt, bitter, sour, astringent and spicy on one single plate (technically the last two are actually forms of

chemesthesis Chemesthesis is the detection of potentially harmful chemicals by the skin and mucous membranes. Chemesthetic sensations arise when chemical compounds activate Sensory receptor, receptors associated with other senses that mediate pain, touch, and T ...

rather than true flavours). According to Indian food custom, a proper meal should be a perfect balance of all these six flavours. Restaurants typically offer a choice of vegetarian or meat-based thalis. Vegetarian bhojanams are very typical and commonplace in

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

canteens Dishes served in a thali vary from region to region in the Indian subcontinent and are usually served in small bowls, called ''katori'' in India. These katoris are placed along the edge of the round tray, the actual thali; sometimes a steel tray with multiple compartments is used. Typical dishes include rice,

dal Dal is a term in the Indian subcontinent for dried, split pulses. Dal or DAL may also refer to: Places Cambodia *Dal, Ke Chong Finland * Laakso, a neighbourhood of Helsinki India * Dal Lake, in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India * Dal ...

, vegetables,

roti Roti is a round flatbread originating from the Indian subcontinent. It is commonly consumed in many South Asian, Southeast Asian, Caribbean, East African, and Southeast African countries. It is made from stoneground whole-wheat flour, kno ...

papad A papadam (also spelled poppadom, among other variants), also known as papad, is a snack that originated in the Indian subcontinent. Dough of Vigna mungo, black gram bean flour is either Deep frying, deep fried or cooked with dry heat (flipped ...

, dahi (yogurt), small amounts of

chutney A chutney () is a spread typically associated with cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt, or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion ...

or pickle, and a sweet dish. Rice or roti is the usual main dish that occupies the central portion of the thali, while side dishes like vegetable curries and other aforementioned delicacies are lined circularly along the round thali. Depending on the restaurant or the region, the thali consists of delicacies native to that region. In general, a thali begins with different types of breads such as

puri Puri, also known as Jagannath Puri, () is a coastal city and a Nagar Palika, municipality in the state of Odisha in eastern India. It is the district headquarters of Puri district and is situated on the Bay of Bengal, south of the state ca ...

s or chapatis (

s) and different vegetarian specialities ( curries). However, in South India and Southeast Asia, rice is the only staple served with bhojanams. Thalis or Bhojanams are sometimes referred to by the regional characteristic of the dishes they contain. For example, one may encounter

Andhra Andhra Pradesh (ISO: , , AP) is a state on the east coast of southern India. It is the seventh-largest state and the tenth-most populous in the country. Telugu is the most widely spoken language in the state, as well as its official lang ...

bhojanam, Nepalese thali,

Rajasthani Rajasthani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India * Rajasthani languages, a group of Indic languages spoken there * Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the state * Rajasthani architecture, Indian ar ...

thali, Gujarati thali, Maharashtrian thali, Manipuri chakluk,

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

unavu and Thai unavu. In many parts of

and the

, the bread and the rice portions are not served together in the thali. Typically, the bread is offered first with rice being served afterwards, often in a separate bowl or dish.

Affordability

The Economic Survey of India 2020 has a section called ''Thalinomics'', the survey found that the vegetarian thalis became 29% more affordable compared to 2006-07, while non-veg thalis became 18% more affordable.

History

Early history

Foreign accounts

Kansa metal

Thali/Bhojanam meal

Affordability

See also

References

Further reading