Evening snacking is the death that all noble intentions meet. Vada pavs, samosas, bread rolls can be found guilty of causing everything from weight gain to cholesterol. And 5 pm is that deadly hour when all hell breaks loose.

Maharashtrian cuisine is endlessly diverse. Puneri cuisine is very different from food from Konkan, Vidarbha, or Kolhapur. Within these cuisines, lie the differences of caste and class. But the problem with Sachin Kundalkar’s Gulabjaam is that it doesn’t acknowledge any of this.

Gujaratis inherit a penchant for "food terrorism". There were Gujarati kids at school who wouldn’t drink “jhoota” water in case it had been touched by a meat eater. And there was my grandmother who’d remind me that I was Jain every time I’d go for an evening snack.

Whether you end your meals with payasam or kheer, Indian food has always been more than just a collection of regional cuisines.

You remember that gym hottie you were eyeing for weeks? And how when he finally opened his mouth to crack a joke, your world fell apart. Fondant cake is no different. It’s got the looks, but you take a bite and you know what disappointment tastes like.

Juicy, luscious mangoes appear and announce the best season of your childhood – the summer.

My mother has published a cookbook; my aunt has made meticulous recipe cards with the fond intention of passing them down to the next generation. And yet, an appeal to either one for how to make a favourite dish turns into an hour spent deciphering how much “about a handful” is, or when a dish “smells of dum”.

We seem to have become intolerant to the very foods that used to be household staples – butter, cheese, milk, and rotis! Has something truly changed, or as my mom would say, are we just trying new ways to push up our cool quotient?

Ask any TamBrahm, and they would swear by their kula deivam (family God) that not wrapping up a meal with thayir-sadam (curd rice) and some lemon pickle is enough to get you ostracised.

In India, poverty isn’t just a state of mind, and paisa-vasooli is a way of life. Yet, people buy an extra birthday cake, just to smash it gleefully in some unfortunate soul’s face. What gives?

Afraid of disappointing my mother and Jesus, I’d observe Lent like any good li’l altar boy. At 14, however, I went full throttle into the “Fat Little Asshole” phase of my life.

Even as Mumbai has opened up, a host of small businesses are conspicuously absent from its landscape, as they were unable to weather the months of lockdown. This latest obituary is for Bandra’s beloved Karachi Bakery.

On a good day, RoohAfza tastes like a vampire’s tonic that drowned itself in a vat of sugar. On a bad day, it tastes like pulverised incense stick. What then is the hype really about?

Gatari, the last day before the holy month of Shravan begins, is a day of indulgence. Eat meat and drink until you pass out in the gutter. That’s the mantra in Mumbai’s Maharashtrian pockets.

“Idli are the most boring things in the world,” tweeted Edward Anderson, a UK professor of history and expert in India-Britain studies. All hell broke loose. Anderson was schooled by angry Indians on Twitter over his blasphemous opinion – even Shashi Tharoor got involved.

In a lockdown that has seen some truly questionable culinary innovations like Chocolate Maggi and Oreo Bhajiyas, Chyawanprash ice cream just raised the stakes.

The mythology of food in India is storied and the best fables revolve around pregnancy. Twins, some believe, are the result of eating twin bananas – fruit that has the power to impregnate a man.

Is it okay to eat a cow that wants to be eaten?

The reason I love sorpotel so much could be because it was my first solid meal. Legend has it my mum ran out of baby food so my grandmother turned sorpotel and khichdi into Cerelac on crack and fed it to me. Even today, there is nothing more comforting than a steaming bowl of khichdi, accentuated with a few tablespoons of the luscious curry.

Last month, when Alps, a four-decade-old beer bar at Colaba, shut down unannounced, no one seemed to instantly notice. It didn’t warrant blockbuster social media obituaries like Cafe Zoe did. That’s the thing about Alps, it never hankered for attention or loyalty. It just waited until it earned it.

The humble varan bhaat toop is as versatile and ubiquitous as Radhika Apte’s appearances on Netflix. Sometimes it is plain simple comfort food, at other times it’s part of an elaborate offering to Bappa. A love for varan bhaat toop is the epitome of Maharashtrian-ness.

Here's how you can turn a simple potato and a pack of Wai wai into gold.

Anthony Bourdain was a proponent of the gratuitous sexualisation of food long before Instagram came along and added a hashtag before food porn. He extolled the virtues of food with a rhythmic metre that rose in crescendo before collapsing into a post-climactic crumpled heap, just like good sex.

On Durga Pujo, the lives of the big-eyed, gentle-faced, and maach-guzzling Bengalis are marred by a potent shadow of the world’s most deadly dose of ABC – ambol (acidity), bodhojom (indigestion), and constipation.

Despite being from a cosmopolitan family, I realised that every day, I was unwittingly consuming our caste on my plate. In the game of kitchen politics, caste is a far more deeply riven divide, than the differences between North and South Indian food.

Just like there’s a Hallmark card for every occasion, there’s a specific type of whisky uncle you encounter in different situations.

“Loving you has not been easy.” A love letter to rice.

A potato-less diet makes me a social misfit in Kolkata. You can take the egg from the roll, but there’s no way to take the aloo from the posto.

A cocktail of diverse mindsets and eating habits is what forms most of the country’s cosmopolitan workforce. The lunchbox, then, is a reflection of your personality.