Tiffin carriers or dabbas are a kind of lunch box used widely in Asia and the Caribbean for tiffin meals. From India and Pakistan, they spread to Malaysia and Singapore
In the Indian city of Mumbai and the Pakistani city of Karachi, there is a complex and efficient delivery system that regularly delivers hot lunches packed in dabbas to city office workers from their suburban homes or from a food service. It uses delivery workers known as .
The book Tiffin: An Untold Story covers 172 tiffin carriers, some over a century old.
Nomenclature
In
Cambodia, tiffin carriers are known as
Chan Srak (), in
Hokkien they are called
Uánn-tsân (), in Indonesian as
rantang;
mangkuk tingkat ('tiered bowls') in
Malay language; while in Thai they are known as
Pin To ( ˈpìn).
In
Arab countries they are called
safartas (سفرطاس, from
Turkish language "sefer tası" meaning 'travel bowls'). The Hungarian word for a tiffin box is
éthordó ('food carrier').
Design and materials
Normally these containers come with two or three tiers, although more elaborate versions can have four. The bottom tier, sometimes larger than the others, is the one usually used for rice. Tiffin carriers are opened by unlocking a small catch on either side of the handle. Tiffin carriers are generally made out of steel and sometimes of
aluminium, but
Vitreous enamel and plastic versions have been made by European companies.
Image:Mumbai Dabbawala or Tiffin Wallahs- 200,000 Tiffin Boxes Delivered Per Day.jpg|Two in Mumbai delivering meals packed in tiffin carriers
Image:Tiffin box made in Thailand.jpg|Thai tiffin box in Bangladesh.
File:Tiffin Carrier Lack, Sammlung Gunther Lambert.jpg|Tiffin carrier, Myanmar Lacquerware
Image: Pernakan Tiffin Carrier.png|Malaysia, Peranakan tiffin carrier
See also
Bibliography
-
J. Prakash & M. Punita (2020) Tiffin: An Untold Story
Further reading
