National Museum drops non-veg from food menu

Non-vegetarian food has been dropped from the menu of the National Museum’s exhibition-cum-event.

Officials say that this is not a written policy but due to the sentiments of people.

Initially, some non-vegetarian food items were placed on the menu and displayed on the museum’s website. Then the organizers were criticized.

After that, it decided to serve only vegetarian food at the exhibition. The exhibition commenced on February 19 and would continue till February 25.

The event is organized by the National Museum, the Ministry of Culture and One Station Million Stories (OSMS) jointly. OSM is a private firm.

The menu of the online booking as well as the museum’s website comprised both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes.

Some non-vegetarian food items on offer were fish in turmeric stew, meat fat soup, dried fish, lamb liver with chick-pea etc.

However, the museum cited some unspecified rules on Tuesday and asked OSM to not serve non-vegetarian dishes.

The additional director general of the museum Subrata Nath said that non-vegetarian food items were on the website for a day, however, they decided to withdraw these items after realizing the issue.

The museum is full of idols of many gods and goddesses and in order to respect the sentiments of the people, the decision of not serving non-vegetarian items has been taken.

When asked about the common practice of serving non-vegetarians in the culinary history of ancient India, he said that though non-vegetarian food items would not be served, they would be briefed on food items and old dietary practices.

He also talked about how the dietary practices of ancient India have changed over the years.

He said that there was no rule as such, however, to respect the traditions of the museum and sentiments of the people, the officials decided for withdrawing non-vegetarian dishes from the menu.

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