LFC Quiz
As part of the Local Food Club’s (LFC) quarterly theme, Know Your Desi Ingredients (KYDI), we hosted a KYDI-centred quiz where community members explored ingredients that shape everyday eating—from seasonal fruits and vegetables to pantry staples, fish, meat, and a lot more.
We were joined by 42 members from the LFC community despite it being a weekday. The winner received a Single Origin Spice Gift Set from The Locavore’s partner producer Nilgiri Marten Spices.
Here’s a snapshot into the quiz that had it all—intriguing pictures, regional names, food trivia, and fascinating stories about the ingredients that shape our everyday food.
Round 1: Can you identify the ingredient?
While most spices are either fruit/seeds, cloves are the dried flower buds of the clove tree. Although cloves are dry and dark brown in colour when we cook with them, the clove tree’s buds are red during harvesting and drying, and shaped like nails.
Black pepper is usually encountered dry, black, and wrinkled. On the vine, the fruits are green and grow in clusters that resemble several other tropical spices. Black, white, and green pepper all come from Piper nigrum.
Round 2: How did it get here?
Chillies are inseparable from Indian cuisine today. Before their arrival, pungency in food came from black pepper, long pepper, mustard, ginger, and other ingredients. Portuguese traders helped introduce South American chillies to India, after which they were adapted into numerous regional varieties and preparations.
Northeast India has an extraordinary range of citrus fruits. Kaji Nemu is especially associated with Assam and is valued for its fragrance, acidity, and culinary uses. Learn more about kaji nemu—a fragrant, seedless lemon—in our Know Your Desi Ingredients archive, here.
Round 3: What’s in Season?
In Kashmir, saffron crocuses bloom in autumn, and harvesting is concentrated into a short period when the flowers must be picked and processed quickly.
Hilsa is an anadromous species, which means it migrates from marine waters into rivers to spawn. Its availability is therefore shaped by river flow, estuaries, migration, fishing pressure, and seasonal conditions. Read this excerpt from the book Following Fish by Samanth Subramanian describing the practice and process of eating West Bengal’s prized hilsa.
ROUND 4: Read Between the Bites
Hooker chives have a wider range of edible parts and are used in food traditions in the Himalayas and in Northeast India. Their limited mainstream visibility often makes the ingredient sound more exotic than it is in its home regions. Learn more about hooker chives in our Know Your Desi Ingredients (KYDI) archive.
Learn more about radhuni in our Know Your Desi Ingredients (KYDI) archive.
ROUND 5: Truth, Myth or Policy?
“The monsoon fishing ban” is often discussed as though it were a single nationwide rule. Dates and regulations vary across coasts and states in India. Restrictions frequently focus on mechanised or larger vessels, while smaller traditional craft may be treated differently.
At the central level, India imposes a 61-day fishing closure in Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) waters, but the dates differ: 15 April–14 June on the east coast and 1 June –31 July on the west coast. Rules within territorial waters can also vary by state, and traditional non-motorised vessels are exempt from the central EEZ closure.
Kadaknath’s distinctive colour is derived from its extensive melanin pigmentation, not via cooking or the feed. The registered GI is specifically ‘Jhabua Kadaknath Black Chicken Meat’, associated with Madhya Pradesh. Like other GIs, it protects a geographically rooted identity; it does not certify every black chicken or guarantee specific nutritional outcomes. Learn more about GI tags, read LFC’s Reading Circle discussion from August 2026.
To be a part of more such events and conversations, sign up to join the Local Food Club!