A wafer-thin East Indian bread made with lentil flour. This tortilla-like bread can be unseasoned (as preferred in southern India) or variously flavored with red or black pepper, garlic or other seasonings, as in northern India. Poppadams are available in Indian markets in various sizes and flavours. Deep-fried poppadams puff up to almost double their original size. Grilling them over an open flame will give them a smoky flavour.

OK, the description being dealt with, on with the grammatical intricacies that this innocuous little Indian food arouses.

As with many foreign languages that have their own alphabet, the word poppadom has several spelling variations of the borrowed word referring to this plain Tamil food, usually served with dips. The 1999 Concise Oxford English Dictionary lists the word as Poppadom, however offers poppadum and popadom as alternatives. Variant spellings offered in other dicitonaries include include papadam, papaddam, papadom, papadum, papodam, papodum, popadam, popadom, poppadam, poppadom, poppadum, poppodam, puppadum, puppodam, puppodum. Feel free to take your pick.

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