About

Food tells stories that history books forget. Every dish carries centuries of trade, migration, conquest and invention: a plate of biryani is a map of empires, and the way we like our steak turns out to be an argument about national identity. The essays here follow those threads, asking where a dish came from, how it travelled, and why we cook it the way we do.

The essays and the recipes

This site started as something smaller. During the lockdowns of 2020 I found myself cooking more than ever, partly to relax and partly to make the things we couldn’t go out for, and I put those recipes on a little site called Flavours of My Home.

Back then I had a firm rule: when I’m looking for a recipe, I want a recipe, not a story. I still believe it, so here the two live apart. The recipes are just recipes, with times, ingredients and a method, and the stories have their own home in the essays.

I don’t follow recipes closely. I read a lot of them, in books and online, and always end up making changes. The ones here are what I actually cook at home. They may not be perfectly tested and the photographs won’t win prizes, but they are kept simple, and I hope they work as well for you as they do for me.

Who’s writing

I’m Akhilesh Sabharwal. I was born and raised in Delhi, and I work in marketing technology. I also write about technology and the history of Hinduism at asabharwal.com.

Cooking for family and friends is the simplest way I know of showing care. If you cook something from here, or know a story about a dish I should chase down, write to me at [email protected].