Don’t ruin your appetite by filling up on soup and salad, but don’t be the person with 15 paneer tikkas on your plate either. Here is a bhukkad’s approach to winning every round of man vs food.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The average Gujju salivates at the very mention of undhiyu, hunger and childhood nostalgia kicking in at once. In a state famous for its dhokla, fafda, khakra, and khandvi, it is the haughty undhiyu that has a national day of its own. But is the hype worth it?

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.

Turn some Dairy Milk chocolate and Old Monk into this delicious hot chocolate. The perfect 'pick me up' for when you're feeling low.

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?

“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.

Solo meals can be a source of warmth. For one, it’s refreshingly satisfying to interact with every bite in its glory. What people see as a lonely endeavour, I see as solitude.

Settle down in front of your TV with these piping hot dal baras as, you watch the battle for Chhattisgarh unfold. #ChhattisgarhElections2018

Make this sinful chocolate pudding because cheating on your diet is the only acceptable form of cheating.

Every Sunday, at the stroke of noon, a group of Indians gathers to validate its privilege through Instagram filters of eggs Benedict and mimosa. This breed of people can be classified as snobby Sunday brunch-goers.

I began to cook when I moved out of my house because I simply had to. I don’t know when I embraced the kitchen, but cooking gave me a sense of self.

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.

For most people I know, it’s impossible not to get lost in nostalgia at the mere mention of Parle-G. The biscuit was my diabetic grandfather’s favourite treat. And the only way to get my school watchmen to open the gates and let you inside after the morning bell was with bribes of Parle-G.

Indian restaurants and pubs have their own caste system. Firangs are the Brahmins of the restaurant world, and next in line are Silver Spoons – celebrities from the film industry. All the hospitality is reserved for them. At the bottom of the rung are single, young men, aka the Sad Stag Group.

Most middle-class Bengali families such as mine are moderately open-minded. You can make honest confessions to them about your vices and hope for a friendly ear, but never about your vegetarianism.

Dev, a 13-year-old desi contestant on the ongoing Junior MasterChef Australia, has left judges and viewers thoroughly impressed. Born and raised in Australia, he prepared a platter of Lamb Mughlai Curry, saffron rice, cucumber raita, coriander chutney, & smoked chicken kebab – all within 75 minutes.

KFC doesn’t want you licking your fingers. “That thing we’ve been saying for 64 years? Ignore it,” says the fast food brand in its newest campaign that’s appropriate for this pandemic.

Carlos Elizondo, a 79-year-old Mexcian man, was not the one to fret after losing his job because of the lockdown. He started uploading his food videos on YouTube and has become an instant star, garnering 400K subscribers in less than a month.

Even in the coldest of Finnish winters the comfort of ghar ka khana can warm your heart enough to brave the sharp chill in the air and the stinging ice in your face. And nobody understood that better than my maa.

Food and sex go hand in hand. Making love on an empty stomach is like crossing the desert barefoot: You wouldn’t want to do it unless absolutely necessary. What we eat says a lot about who we are. Pick a five-course meal and we’ll tell you your favourite sexual position.

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.

Life is not a Quora thread and hence not all teetotallers have grand backstories that involve prisons, arrests, and a dozen deaths. Sometimes our reasons are as simple as we don’t friggin’ like alcohol. So stop urging us to “loosen up and embrace the times”.

The prize for fasting is the feast. Now there are feasts, and there is iftar, a meal so elaborate that it gives other religions #feastinggoals.

The idea of eating lamb testicles is enough to throw you into a moral and gastric conundrum. But not eating certain parts of animals leads to wastage of food on a scale you can’t imagine.

On Maharashtra Day, we celebrate the state's biggest celebrity -- and the hero of Mumbai's street food scene. Jai Maharashtra!