Writing an Indian food dictionary is an uphill battle on many different levels - but a major issue right now is that what's cooked, eaten and consumed in Indian households is changing so rapidly, it's difficult to keep up. Many dishes that were commonplace even 5 years ago are now disappearing.

Dear PRs, there's nothing groundbreaking about "eating pumpkins in autumn." And putting pumpkin in a curry is not a "savoury hack", it's just... pumpkin curry.

I didn’t realise that ‘gunpowder spices’ - in fact an umbrella term for a category of South Indian, legume-based dry chutneys eaten as a condiment - had become so mainstream in the UK (prob. because of Dishoom) that it’s now used as a seasoning on a Domino’s pizza.

Authors, have any "narrative growth architects" contacted you promising to promote your book globally? I have an (AI-generated?) email from one such individual, who wants to expose my book to the world so thrillingly that surely the next logical step would be to turn it into a Hollywood movie :)

Someone I know got Tommy Robinson and Tyler Robinson mixed up and thought the recent central London march was in protest of the latter’s arrest. And these are the people who’re allowed to vote.

Glad this hyper-local story is getting international coverage - farmed and foraged indigenous ingredients are transforming a school meal in north-east India. Loving the sound of some of the dishes (omelette with fiddlehead ferns and turmeric, yes please). www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

There are a lot of 'curry festivals' these days, but they need to be more interesting and do things like curry history, different types of curries round the world, tastings of ancient recipes etc. If their only point is "come and eat curry", well you can do that in a restaurant.

Someone I've known for many years (a food connection) has started posting more and more unhinged Islamophobic content on social media... punctuated by Middle Eastern restaurant recommendations.

Very tempted to do a samosa zine (not that I have a clue how to design a zine)

Why TV cooking shows are dying out. Um... because most of them are pretty bad and really quite patronising? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

'Introduced curry to the UK' isn't entirely accurate as explained in my book, but I'm glad his grave has been restored. I was in Brighton a few days back, I wish I'd known. Sake Dean Mahomed's contribution was hugely significant - I've written about him a few times. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Rice-centric celebration after spending nearly a year on rice section of my dictionary. It was almost like writing a book within a book! Only a fraction will make it into print but I had to get to grips with the topic. (The 2nd image is of a rice goddess at British Museum’s Ancient India exhibition)

A bit too unique if you ask me

It's so hard to find a decent, on-the-go vegetarian sandwich in London (I mean from mainstream retailers, not fancy sandwich shops) that I have to tell you that Gail's charred aubergine, tahini and fresh mint sandwich is surprisingly good.

I have a simple, old-fashioned solution to this problem of so many plant-based restaurants closing. Just. serve. more. beans. www.theguardian.com/food/2025/se...

I end up going to so many different cafés and restaurants in Golders Green after my meditation class that I'd be happy to write an area guide if anyone wants one, I know all the places :) (The same will happen when Brent Cross Town develops - I have gym and choir classes nearby).

It's good to see that Korean food-centric, time-travelling romantic drama 'Bon Appetit Your Majesty' - which would be seen as 'too niche' in the UK - has been consistently in top 10 for days. Programme makers, take note - we don't all want endless lifestyle cookery shows and cooking competitions.

Someone should open a restaurant with a menu designed to showcase some of the hundreds of thousands of varieties of rice; and even better if we can buy a few of the more unusual ones, along with recipe cards, to experiment at home.

Ever since I read about 88-year old East African-Gujarati chef Manju Patel in a BBC news article a few years back, I wanted to visit her restaurant in Brighton. I'm so pleased to have had the opportunity write about it for Vittles: open.substack.com/pub/vittles/...

If you like South Indian food, look out for more and more London restaurants and event spaces serving Kerala Onam sadhya (banquets) in the next few days - done properly, they're a real vegetarian treat, traditionally served on banana leaves.

Dhal puri and doubles - the origins of Indo-Caribbean dishes (that you can buy at the carnival this weekend) lie in the food brought over and adapted by Indian indentured labourers. I touched on this briefly in my book. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

For national burger day… bun samosa at Roti Chai in Marylebone - smashed samosas in a bun with chutneys, cheese and fermented chilli sauce.

This book, a detailed social and cultural history of Indian mangoes, sounds incredible - why didn't I know about it? www.amazon.co.uk/Mangifera-in...

Today's Vittles is centred on 'mom-and-pop' joints - family-run eateries and takeaways. I wrote about Shrinath, a little Gujarati grocery shop in Swiss Cottage I've wanted to shout about since I accidentally discovered it a few months back; it sells homemade snacks. open.substack.com/pub/vittles/...

I couldn’t get Sheetal Bhatt’s ‘Silent Cuisines’ in UK so I asked my sister to bring it from Goa. It’s a fascinating chronicle of the food of Gujarat’s indigenous Adivasi tribes, an insight into a cuisine mostly made up of native - often foraged - ingredients without influences of globalisation.

Just had an excruciatingly awful lunch in a hospital canteen. The colour palette of the entire meal ranged from light beige to dark beige. But, hard to explain, sometimes there’s comfort to be had in bad food - its very dullness combined with nostalgia and predictability.

According to New York Times, London's famous Indian restaurants opening an outpost in New York include: Dishoom, Gymkhana, Darjeeling Express, Kricket, Ambassadors Clubhouse.

Interesting to note in that London (though not in India) the menus of posh, high-end Indian restaurants are now veering towards traditional/ regional dishes. Gone are the likes of deconstructed pani puri on truffle crostini; it's hello to Amritsari chhole-kulcha and gatte ki sabji.

Although I prefer listening to long-form podcasts, sometimes I have very little time - are there any good podcasts about food, food history or restaurants that are no more than 15 minutes?

A free ‘future of food’ exhibition opened at the Science Museum yesterday. It’s about how so many of the problems with our current food system came about and offers a few solutions related to either technology or ecology. It’s fairly introductory, but a good conversation starter with older children.

I wrote about some of the lesser-known regional specialities at South Indian vegetarian Ananda Bhavan in Wembley for Vittles (behind paywall) - including a large, intriguing banana leaf-steamed layered paratha dish: open.substack.com/pub/vittles/...

This is an excellent new cookbook of Palestinian vegetarian recipes by Sami Tamimi: www.sami-tamimi.com/cookbooks/bo...

I discovered there's such a thing as rice curry, ie curry actually made from rice (rice grains cooked in spiced gravy). Now there are all sorts of unlikely curries like papad ('poppadom') curry and pasta curry, and historic reasons why they exist, but this one I can't get my head around.

I think today is a good day to share this video we were all talking about (on Twitter) back in 2019 - Mamdani with Madhur Jaffrey. Remember Mr Cardamom's 'Nani'? www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQVs...

There's a 'future of food' exhibition coming to Science Museum in July. Tickets are free, but you'll have to book a date and time, register with the museum (to view your tickets), and book a separate free entrance ticket. Only takes a few minutes though... www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/f...

I wrote about why you should absolutely try mulligatawny soup at Veeraswamy as part of Vittles' 'Six Underrated Dishes at Well-Known London Restaurants' piece - including a little history of the restaurant and of the dish itself: open.substack.com/pub/vittles/...

Very sad to hear that Veeraswamy, London's oldest surviving Indian restaurant, might be shutting down. I wrote about its significance in my book. It's got me thinking about all the other historically important Indian restaurants in London, past and present... www.the-londoner.co.uk/is-the-king-...