It is in the Matunga market in Mumbai that chef Ashwini Pai learnt how to identify a fresh and tender jeev kadgi. She writes on the seasonal produce essential to Mangalorean cooking, and how the market connects her to the town her grandparents left behind.
Why don’t we treat markets as the wonderful public spaces they really are? Wandering through a local market in Pune, and speaking to the vendors who run it, architect Smita Patil is struck anew by this question.
The Wild Food Project is our modest attempt to study, archive, and celebrate indigenous forest produce, and the vast traditional knowledge that surrounds it. In 2022, we made a start in Palghar district in Maharashtra during the monsoons.
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.
The idea for OOO Farms took root when Shailesh Awate, an ardent trekker, began to notice forest cover in the Sahyadris diminishing through the decades. Driven by the desire to preserve these forests, he started working with indigenous communities in the region to conserve native and indigenous seeds.
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.