Tiffin meals, those familiar multitiered metal containers packed with food, have been around for the past 30 years. The novelty might be long gone but the're popular among those who are too busy to whip up a meal, yet wish to eat home cooked food. Tiffn meals are also known as Tingkat meals, Daily food delivery, Home cooked food or Bao Fu Sik (包伙食).
Working women, busy couples, mums juggling career and family, young bachelors in small kitchen-less apartments, would opt for the convenience of tiffin meals.
Tiffin is lunch, or any light meal. It originated in British India, and is today found primarily in Indian English.[1] The word originated when Indian custom superseded the British practice of an afternoon dinner, leading to a new word for the afternoon meal.[1] It is derived from the obsolete English slang tiffing, for "taking a little drink or sip".[2] When used for "lunch"; it is not necessarily a light meal.[3]:88 Notably, it is used in the name of MTR, Mavalli Tiffin Room. There are many eateries in Bangalore and Mysore called "tiffanys" which serve tiffin. The word Tiffanys has now come to mean Tiffin in this area. The movie Breakfast at Tiffany's is to have supposedly caused this confusion and word-transfer[1].
In South India and in Nepal, the term is generally used for between-meals snacks: dosas, idlis, etc.[4] Outside South India, like Mumbai, the word mostly refers to any packed lunch, often light lunches prepared for working Indian men by their wives after they have left for work, or for schoolchildren by their parents.[5] 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.[6] Tiffin often consists of rice, dal, curry, vegetables, chapathis or "spicy meats".[3]In addition, the lunch boxes are themselves called tiffin carriers, tiffin-boxes or sometimes tiffins. Kiara Kitchen provides daily food delivery to Mont Kiara, Sri Hartamas & TTDI.
