💬 My most Hyderabadi habit: I can't eat a meal without pickle, even pizza

I cannot eat a meal without pickle on the side. Rice, roti, dosa, even a sandwich. There has to be pickle. My wife found this out on our honeymoon in Goa. Seafood place, beautiful prawns, and I asked for pickle. The waiter looked at me like I'd asked for a blanket. They didn't have any. I was quiet the whole meal. Next day I bought mango pickle from a shop and carried it in my bag for the rest of the trip. At home we have 5 open at any time. Mango, lemon, gongura, garlic and the red chilli one my mother sends. Gongura is the king. If you're from here you know. If you're not, I feel sorry for you. My mother still makes a big batch every May and sends it in old Bournvita jars. Never a new jar. If one of those jars doesn't come back to her clean, I hear about it for a week. I've done pickle with pizza. Don't judge me until you've tried lemon pickle on a cheese slice. My kids are the same now. My daughter takes a small box of it in her school tiffin. Her friends think it's weird. Last week one of them asked her for some. So it's spreading. My work here is done. My wife has given up. She just puts the bottle on the table now without being asked. So what's your most Hyderabadi thing? The habit people from outside find strange. Could be food, could be how you talk, could be how you bargain with auto drivers. Mine is the pickle, and I'm not changing. 30 years and counting, no plans to stop. Gongura forever. My mother will be very happy when she reads this.

Carrying mango pickle in your bag for a Goa trip is the most Hyderabadi thing I have heard. My cousin keeps a tiny bottle of gongura pickle in his office drawer, and the whole floor knows when he opens it. He also offers it to visitors, which I respect.

Mine is probably that I judge a restaurant almost entirely by how good their mirchi ka salan is, even if everything else on the menu is excellent. Friends visiting from other cities find this baffling since it is just a side dish to them. For me it is basically the deciding vote on whether a meal was worth it. Small thing to be this particular about, but here we are.