bhida

Bhida is a term used in several South Asian languages to refer to different foods, and it also appears as a place name and a surname in some communities. There is no single, standardized meaning for bhida; its sense is highly regional and context-dependent. In culinary usage, bhida can denote various edible preparations or ingredients depending on locality. In some communities, it names a traditional dish made from locally available produce; in others, it may refer to a vegetable, leaf, or legume used in cooking, or to a snack produced by frying, drying, or pickling. Because the term travels across language boundaries, its recipes and ingredients vary widely and are typically passed down through families rather than codified in a single cookbook.

Linguistically, bhida appears in several languages spoken in the region, including Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Nepali, with different pronunciations and spellings. The lack of a universal definition reflects regional linguistic diversity rather than a shared culinary category.

Beyond food, bhida also occurs as a place name and occasionally as a surname in parts of the subcontinent, though these uses are generally not connected to any specific dish. References to bhida are largely regional and rely on ethnographic or local culinary sources.