Portfolio Details

Food Memoir

Uttarakhand Cuisine: Food and Folktales From the Hills

A food memoir of people, places, seasons and stories

Uttarakhand Cuisine: Food and Folktales from the Hills is a book that sits very close to my heart, because it is far more than a collection of recipes. It is a food memoir — a remembering of people, places, seasons, and stories that shaped my growing-up years in Mussoorie and my roots in Garhwal. Food, for me, has always been inseparable from memory, and this book is my attempt to capture that intimate relationship.

With a foreword by food historian and academician Dr Pushpesh Pant, the book weaves together over a hundred traditional recipes with nuggets of childhood nostalgia, origin stories of dishes, and six food- and ingredient-based folktales from the hills. These folktales — passed down orally across generations — bring alive the humour, wisdom, and everyday philosophy of mountain life, making the book as much about storytelling as it is about cooking.

This project also pushed me creatively in unexpected ways. I turned photographer for the book, documenting the food as authentically as possible, while collaborating with a talented artist and several gifted photographers who brought the folktales and landscapes alive through sketches and images. It became a deeply collaborative effort, mirroring the communal nature of food itself.

The book was published by Om Books International and launched in October 2024 in Gurgaon. The icing on the cake was having it launched by two Padma Shri awardees — Dr Pushpesh Pant and scientist and Gene Campaign founder Dr Suman Sahai. Their presence and words lent immense meaning to the journey.

Later, speaking about Uttarakhand’s culinary traditions at the Landour Lecture Series in Mussoorie, where I also read from my book besides speaking about it, reaffirmed why this work mattered. Food is a living heritage. When a recipe is passed on, so are customs, values, and memories. At a time when hill cuisine is often reduced to instant noodles and noodles and momos, for tourists, documenting and celebrating our traditional food felt urgent.

This book is my way of saying that our food — like our stories — deserves to be remembered, honoured, and passed on.