Kahaani: A journey through India’s regional cuisines

At most food festivals, the familiar dishes draw the queues. Kahaani is built on the opposite bet: that visitors will turn up for the unfamiliar.

Conceived by Guru Maa, Sara Abdullah Pilot, and Aishwarya Jha as a chef-led celebration of India’s regional and hyperlocal cuisines, Kahaani combines food with crafts, cultural conversations, heritage artefacts, workshops and a curated culinary bazaar. The initiative brings together 12 chefs and culinary practitioners from across the country, with the aim of exploring India’s culinary memory and the stories behind its food.

The cuisines featured reflect traditions that are often closely tied to particular communities and their ways of life. From Syrian Christian food in Kerala and Naga-Angami cuisine to Khasi and Ladakhi fare, the selection moves across regions with vastly different landscapes, ingredients and cultural influences. Jharkhand’s Adivasi cuisine also finds a place, alongside Coorgi, Bengali and regional Gujarati cuisines.

The brief to the chefs was authenticity, not accommodation. The organisers were looking for the authentic food of each region. Delhi already has its Punjabi food, chaat, kebabs and tikkas, and the festival is meant to introduce visitors to dishes they haven’t come across before, Guru Maa notes.

The diversity is not limited to differences between states. Within Kerala, for instance, Christian, Muslim and Hindu communities have distinct culinary traditions, each with its own preparations, ingredients and influences. Similar variations can be found across the country, where food practices often reflect a community’s history, religious customs and relationship with its surroundings.

Kahaani extends beyond community-specific food traditions. The culinary heritage of cities such as Lucknow, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Delhi forms part of the showcase, bringing urban food histories into the conversation. Himalayan Rasoi and the culinary traditions of Goan Saraswat Brahmin communities add further regional perspectives.

The chefs themselves pull in different directions. At the Naga stall, Yimshen Naro Jamir was serving a fusion salad built on Naga ingredients, alongside pork with pineapple, momo with aloo chutney, and said strict tradition was not the aim. Migration, the chef said, has changed the region’s food considerably, and many chefs are now experimenting. Asked to represent Nagaland, the chef chose to bring in Assamese and Manipuri cooking as well, a decision linked to events in Manipur.

Adonijah Lyngdoh, cooking for Khasi, took the opposite view. He served putharo, a rice flatbread that, he said, must be made in black clay from Larnai, with pork, chicken or mushroom. For him, the food survives because of home cooks in the villages who keep alive the way his grandparents cooked. “Because our generation eats out at cafés and restaurants so often, we sometimes end up losing touch with our own traditional food,” he said. Festivals like this, he added, give communities a chance to show their food and culture.

Further down, the Kerala stall served soft appam with stew, while the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Development Corporation offered Tabak maaz and other wazwan dishes alongside a crumbly walnut fudge and steaming saffron kahwa.

Across India, food carries more than recipes. Passed down through generations, it reflects the histories, customs and everyday lives of the communities that sustain it. Cooking techniques, the use of local ingredients and knowledge handed down within families all form part of this heritage. The idea of culinary memory lies at the heart of Kahaani, which seeks to bring these lesser-known aspects of India’s food cultures into wider view.

True to the founders’ focus on keeping living traditions alive, the event also featured regional folk performances, including an energetic bhangra set.

The founders describe the festival as both a celebration and a preservation effort. "Much of what is beautiful about the country lies beneath the surface and is at risk", says Sara Abdullah. "As more people order meals through apps, family and community recipes could be lost, and part of Kahaani’s purpose is to preserve and document them."

Guru Maa calls the festival "a real discovery of India", while Aishwarya Jha describes it as the founders’ attempt "to do our part, to keep India alive". Pushing back on the stereotype that Indian cuisine is overly heavy and oily, Jha calls it "a complete misconception," pointing instead to the country's lighter regional dishes.

This first edition, however, is only the beginning. "There are limitless kahaanis of food across the country’s communities. This is just a drop in the ocean," Abdullah notes. Looking ahead, Guru Maa confirms the team plans to return on a much larger scale: "We want to come back with a bigger edition, put more on offer, and bring in chefs from regions yet to be represented."