How these women are putting forgotten foods back on our plates
Bichu booti, Sana Hua Nimbu, Seema Chintha Daal, Meetha Karela are some of the many regional wild foods and microgreens that evoke childhood memories of love, sharing and the joy of eating together. But as green spaces shrink in cities, food has been reduced to what’s available in the market. Wild edibles, traditional berries and forest fruits have largely vanished from urban Indian plates. “Biodiversity was once an integral part of everyday Indian meals, but it’s gradually disappearing,” says Vibha Varshney, head of biodiversity and food at the New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). However, a clutch of Indian women are working to bring these forgotten foods back into our daily diets. They were part of the launch of ‘My Food Story’, a digital platform by CSE that celebrates traditional knowledge, forgotten ingredients, recipes and the powerful stories they carry. Uttarakhand-based food writer Megha Prakash shares how you can’t actively look for these ingredients—you just chance upon them while visiting a house or a market or in conversations with locals. She recalls a vegetable called Meetha Karela found in the hills, which isn’t a bitter gourd but tastes like cucumber. Or an Indian pokeweed, which is poisonous unless cooked from its tender young leaves. Goa-based Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar, chef and restaurateur behind Edible Archives, Bento Bento, and Yo Colombo, talks about how she changes her menu with the seasons, introducing traditional produce that often isn’t cultivated but foraged. “There’s a need to build a network of people who can collect these ingredients regularly,” she says. Ghosh Dastidar has built a team of 5-6 local women who are the backbone of her initiative. She uses ingredients like amade—a sweet-sour fruit commonly found in Goa—and even taro leaves and stems in her recipes. “It’s important to have these on restaurant menus because that’s what inspires people to try them at home,” she says, emphasising the role chefs can play in bringing back indigenous ingredients. Devi Lakshmikutty, co-founder of BioBasics, an online organic brand from Coimbatore, speaks about the critical role social media has played in creating curiosity and awareness about these foods. But she cautions that it shouldn’t be a one-time experiment. “People must cook these foods regularly,” she says. “There has to be a consistent effort to include them in daily diets—only then will farmers continue to grow them.” As Lakshmikutty puts it, “It’s good for us, good for the farmers, and good for the environment.” For nutrition and culinary consultant Sangeeta Khanna, the joy lies in finding and cooking wild foods. She warns that as urban consumers get more used to artificial flavours, it becomes harder to enjoy simpler recipes. “Our palate is no longer used to food in its elemental form,” she says. Khanna’s solution: start by incorporating these ingredients into familiar recipes to make them more acceptable. She highlights that these wild leaves, flowers and berries carry distinct nutritional profiles—packed with micronutrients and macronutrients that cultivated foods often lack. These help enrich gut microbiome and promote gut biodiversity within our bodies. However, Khanna also warns against harvesting from polluted lands or water sources, especially those contaminated with heavy metals.