Saravana Bhavan

Hotel Saravana Bhavan is one of the largest vegetarian restaurant chain in the world, founded in 1981 offering south Indian cuisine. They have more than 20 outlets in Chennai , 33 in India and 47 around the world (including USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Middle East. There are plans, as of 2012, to open 5-star Vegetarian-Hotels.

Controversy

The chain founder P. Rajagopal was on the public eye due to his conviction and sentence to life prison for the murder of employee Prince Santhakumar in 2001 and sexual harassment of his wife Jeevajothi. He was the subject of a long piece in New York Times mentioning the case.

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South India

South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep and Puducherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area (635,780 km² or 245,480 sq mi). South India includes the southern part of the peninsular Deccan Plateau and is bounded by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse with two mountain ranges the Western and Eastern Ghats bordering the plateau heartland. Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Tungabhadra and Vaigai rivers are important non-perennial sources of water. Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Kochi are the largest urban areas in the region.

Majority of the people in South India speak one of the four major Dravidian languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. During its history, a number of dynastic kingdoms ruled over parts of South India whose invasions across southern and southeastern Asia impacted the history and culture in those regions. Major dynasties that were established in South India include the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas, Pallavas, Satavahanas, Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and Vijayanagara. European countries entered India through Kerala and the region was colonized by Britain and other nations.

Paneer

Paneer (pronounced [pəniːr]) is a fresh cheese common in South Asia, especially in Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi cuisines. It is an unaged, acid-set, non-melting farmer cheese or curd cheese made by curdling heated milk with lemon juice, vinegar, or any other food acids. Its crumbly and moist form is called chhena in eastern India and in Bangladesh.

History

The word "paneer" is of Persian origin. The Turkish word peynir, the Persian word panir, the Azerbaijani word panir, and the Armenian word panir (պանիր), all derived from "paneer", refers to any type of cheese. The origin of paneer itself is debated. Vedic Indian, Afghan-Iranian and Portuguese-Bengali origins have been proposed for paneer.

Vedic literature refers to a substance that is interpreted by some authors, such as Sanjeev Kapoor, as a form of paneer. According to Arthur Berriedale Keith, a kind of cheese is "perhaps referred to" in Rigveda 6.48.18. However, Otto Schrader believes that the Rigveda only mentions "a skin of sour milk, not cheese in the proper sense".K. T. Achaya mentions that acidulation of milk was a taboo in the ancient Indo-Aryan culture, pointing out that the legends about Krishna (who was brought up by dairy farmers) make several references to milk, butter, ghee and yogurt, but do not mention sour milk cheese.