Tiffin
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Tiffin is an Indian English word for a light midday meal (luncheon),[1] When used in place of the word "lunch", it does not necessarily mean a light meal.[2][a]
History
In the British Raj, where the British custom of afternoon tea was supplanted by the local Indian practice of taking a light meal at that hour, it came to be called tiffin.[4]
Today
In South India and in Nepal, tiffin is generally a snack between meals: dosas, idlis, etc.[5] In other parts of India, such as Mumbai, the word mostly refers to a packed lunch of some sort.[6] In Mumbai, it is often forwarded to them by dabbawalas, sometimes known as tiffin wallahs, who use a complex system to get thousands of tiffin-boxes to their destinations.[7]
Tiffin often consists of rice, dal, curry, vegetables, chapatis or "spicy meats".[8] In addition, the lunch boxes are themselves called tiffin carriers, tiffin-boxes or just tiffins.
See also
Notes
- ^ 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 British India to mean luncheon.[3]
- ^ OED staff 2013, "tiffin, n.".
- ^ Murray 2008, p. 88.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Quinion 2006, Tiffin.
- ^ Hughes, Mookherjee & Delacy 2001, p. 25.
- ^ Harding 2002.
- ^ Thakker 2005.
- ^ 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
{{citation}}: External link in|chapterurl=|chapterurl=ignored (|chapter-url=suggested) (help) - Quinion, [Michael (2 September 2006) [2003], World Wide Words: Tiffin, worldwidewords.org, retrieved March 2015
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); External link in|publisher= - 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
