While India has a rich and diverse culture around cooking dried fish, it hasn’t been celebrated owing to its fraught histories, matters of identity, and smells. Shruti Tharayil writes on challenging old hierarchies of smells, and her own journey of unlearning.
Reviving native seeds in India is an uphill task. But recognising the importance of preserving indigenous knowledge, OOO Farms works closely with local communities in Gujarat and Maharashtra to return heirloom seeds to their homelands.
Moving across continents makes everyday practices such as cooking and feeding much more self-conscious, Krishnendu Ray tells us. A renowned food studies scholar, Ray talks to us about his changed perception of cooking, parenting, and his Didu’s jaggery-sweetened moorki.
Although making hot-processed coconut oil is challenging, Purvina’s team is passionate about preserving Kerala’s traditional oil-making techniques. Catch a glimpse of their oil-making process, stunning uruli, and farm in Malappuram.
Stepping outside the framework of food as celebration alone, Dr. Dolly Kikon looks at culinary cultures through the lens of struggle, community, and hope. Tansha Vohra speaks to the anthropologist about fermentation, resilience, and the projects that demand her attention.
In a school in rural Maharashtra that is rooted in the philosophy of open education, food is seen not just as a way of offering nutrition, but also as a means to building equity and breaking barriers.
Recalling a potluck in Suratgarh for which she took a dabba of hot thenkuzhal, Meera Ganapathi contemplates the unspoken rules of a potluck, and the essence of what makes one stand out.
In the opening chapter of the book, author Indranee Ghosh writes about her grandfather’s culinary adventures in Cherrapunji, where he had just moved to work as a preacher for the Brahmo Samaj.
For theatre artist Sri Vamsi Matta, cooking as an act of remembering, as performance, and as a communal experience, are ways of asserting his identity and defying everyday injustices.