Don't Look Down upon Window Shopping Food - It is a Thriving Sub-culture

It is not aimless if you have a habit of visiting alleys and local markets that are overflowing with food stalls, roadside eateries, open cafés and vendors that sell food in the raw, semi-processed and highly packaged form. The reason? This too is a type of window shopping! Why should the idea of physically browsing through shopping lanes without any intention of buying be restricted to apparel and lifestyle niche only?

Crunchy Wafers, Clunky Cluttered Coffee Mugs, Tearing Package Tapes - How are Food Noises & Visuals Stimulating Unwarranted Hunger Pangs?

Hunger was once the body’s private signal, an instinctive whisper between the stomach and the mind. Today, it is a performance staged and directed by an orchestra of sounds and visuals designed to provoke appetite before biology even speaks. The snap of a wafer, the crinkle of foil, the hiss of soda, the sight of caramel melting in slow motion — each has been engineered to bypass willpower and activate hunger where none existed. What we call “cravings” are often not cravings at all. They are responses to manufactured stimuli. In a culture where silence is rare, we eat not when we are hungry, but when the world reminds us that we could be.

After labels and branding literature, is contemporary food subculture stooping too much towards visuals?

I have already spoken about green-washing and how food labels have been intentionally misinforming consumers, creating a polarization for their product range, smartly using nomenclature than can create visuals of greatness. If you take the time to read into what is actually on offer, the picture is often dirty, murky and very suspicious. Something similar is happening in how we, as consumers, seem to interpret food. 

[Soy Milk Discussion Sans Illusions] 

Colored Ensembles Look Better: Just look at all the lifestyle channels and food shows and there is this distinct fallacy being created that dishes with under-cooked, somewhat raw ingredients, and those that have a fusion of garden veggies are always healthy. If the dish happens to employ about 4-5 differently colored flavoring accessories or vegetables or herbs, the meal is immediately perceived as being damn good. 

Why corona hit restaurants businesses should and can pick-up...it is about mutual gains.

PHOTOS BY KARI MASON

This was today in Google News' morning edition of the headlines - New York, which is quickly becoming the epicenter for the Corona tragedy, has had to shut down nearly all of its restaurant businesses, but what is more surprising is that this is happening across the U.S., and job loss emanating from this trend is massive. Closer to home, somewhat similar things are happening. While ordering in the food remains an option, it seems that more and more permanent closures are underway. While a temporary halt in the daily trading does not mean the end of the lifecycle for a business, just like the automobile sector, permanent closures mean permanent job losses - this is what is worrying me. These are jobs that can be saved. This is at least what I think, for overseas and for the shrinking food business marketplace in India. Just think of this - with the pandemic scare, all food biz are required to follow a lot more hygiene and safety norms. In many places, there are licensing and food inspection regulations. 

However, this is not the standard practice across the food serving industry, at least not in India, where the best pub might have a couple of cockroaches waiting to surprise you under the table. This is perhaps a good time as any to make this benchmark common; whether you are a five-star hotel or a roadside Dhaba, you will need to comply with more-than-average food hygiene standards. Obviously, the business owners are not going to be very upbeat about this, but then, the option is still a lot better than closing shutters. Further, more regulations can be put into place for food ordering, packaging, and delivery, at least until this phase blows over.

This means that each restaurant out there will need to upgrade to better food packaging standards and create cleaner cooking ecosystems that are doable with so many advances in food packaging/serving/preservation mediums. Yes, the conventional dining-out experiences are dead for some time, but if people really want to do it, and if they work with the local governments, there might still be a way to deliver a fine evening wining & dining experience at the doorstep - this might create more employment rather than firing the restaurant staff. If you compare this with the current trend of a restaurant business saying that we are closing out forever, this is worth a try at least - let us not kill the jobs that can be saved!

How to Look Gastronomically Educated When You Don’t Know How to Use Chopsticks in a Dumpling House

You’ve agreed to have dim sum with friends. You thought you were in for steamed comfort, not a public coordination test. But now you’re seated in a candlelit dumpling house, surrounded by sleek bamboo décor, and the table is laid out like an exam. No forks in sight. Only chopsticks. Your confidence evaporates faster than the soup inside a xiaolongbao. The others around you—of course—are naturals. They twirl, lift, and gently tap their dumplings into soy sauce with the elegance of a string quartet. You, on the other hand, are performing surgery with broom handles. Every drop of chili oil feels like an audience spotlight. Somewhere, your ancestors sigh into their butter knives. But fear not. You are not alone in this silent humiliation. Millions before you have walked this porcelain-tiled battlefield, fumbling, dropping, and pretending they weren’t hungry anyway. The good news? Looking gastronomically educated is 80% performance, 20% damage control. The trick is to understand the anthropology of the utensil, the psychology of the diner, and the art of surviving with your dignity (and dumplings) intact.

Unzestful: Peel, Zest or Rind, the Indian Food Scene is Sorely Missing this Simple DIY Kitchen Ingredient!

Zesting: Art of Extracting Peel, Rind or Zest 

It has been just about 3 hours since I saw a brilliantly rendered version of freshly caught fish marinated and then shallow-fried. This episode was on one of those food shows, and the theme was Spanish cooking that is high on using zest of lemons, oranges, and other citrusy fruits. While it is also called the peel or rind in some parts of the world, the zest is essentially just the outermost part of the peel.

I have seen this in many European food-themed programs. These guys are big-time users of peels, ensuring that they capture everything there is to value in any food that can naturally season the dish. The Indian way of cooking is perhaps least likely to do this. Here, the emphasis is on roasting, fast, slow, medium or at any pace that suits the doer. Overtly roasted meats and vegetables that have lost their natural essence is common to many types of regional Indian cuisines.

Some Food Cooking, Serving, Ordering Habits that Need a Change

Like anyone else in this world, I love eating, and I also love the mannerisms, the sub-cultures, the unspoken rules that are meant to be broken that are inherent to many cuisines. However, the zone of must-DOs often overlaps with irritation, making me pause and think - who created these self-anointed rules of the game? I seriously don't understand why people should order a butter parantha with butter-chicken or paneer butter masala - there is no such disease that is diagnosed with lack of cottage cheese! Why is that a burger seems more complete with a dumping of fries by the side - is there a reason why I should chew down more fried stuff when I only wanted a good burger? Some food ordering and eating preferences are seriously questionable... 

7 Reasons Why a Protein Shake-Only Breakfast Is Not Good Enough

There’s something seductive about the hum of a blender at 7:00 a.m. — the smooth promise of efficiency. You scoop, shake, sip, and tell yourself you’ve hacked breakfast. It’s fast, clean, disciplined — the kind of meal Silicon Valley and Instagram approve of. But beneath that illusion of control, the protein-shake-only breakfast has quietly become a modern dietary crutch: more chemical than culinary, more symbolic than satisfying. It represents the dream of optimization — a body that behaves like software. The problem? Bodies don’t code. They metabolize. And metabolism, unlike productivity, cannot be gamified. Here’s why your morning shake isn’t cutting it — and what you’re losing when breakfast becomes a formula.

1. It Trains Your Body to Expect Nothing Real

Liquid breakfasts reduce eating to function — calories in, task out. But food is also mechanical education: chewing stimulates saliva, primes digestion, and activates hormones like ghrelin and leptin that regulate hunger cues. When you skip texture, your gut-brain axis never gets the signal that a real meal occurred. Over time, this can dull your hunger awareness — what psychologists call interoceptive sensitivity. Studies from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2023) found that participants consuming liquid-only breakfasts reported delayed satiety and increased afternoon snacking by 23%. Translation: your “efficient” start is metabolically expensive later.

Is Navratri also about Intermittent Fasting & Rebooting Your Metabolism or is it just deep-level religious faith?

Navratri, at its simplest, is a deep call to discipline. Over nine nights and days, devotees observe fasts, prayers, dance, and ritual observance in honor of Goddess Durga. But the fast is not just an act of abstinence — it is a symbolic undoing of excess, a turning away from the habitual, and a realignment with inner resolve. In classical Hindu practice, ritual fasting is a means for tapasya (austerity), purification, and inner discipline. The body becomes a tool of devotion, and the hunger pangs echo longing. For generations, the question was never metabolic reboot, but spiritual re-orientation: subdue the senses, awaken the inward fire, beseech the Goddess’s grace.

Texts of Devotion: How Ancient Literature Framed the Fast

When we look back to older texts — Puranas, medieval devotional works, and Bhakti poetry — fasting is described as a gateway, not merely deprivation. The fast is a vow, a surrender, a sacred contract between mortal and divine. In that framing, Navratri’s fast carries no secular logic. It is devotion incarnate. Yet, devotion doesn’t mean the body and metabolism stand outside its influence. As we will see, these ancient practices often turned out to have physiological consequences — accidental or intentional.

Lifestyle Introspection: White breads really making us fatter? Discussion in White & Black

Are all types of conventional bread that bad?

Perhaps the easiest comfort food in terms of the logistics of acquiring and buying it, a loaf of bread seems like the biggest target for lifestyle gurus and healthcare specialists with a growing echo that any and nearly all types of white bread are responsible for everything, ranging from diabetes to a possibly fatal heart attack. The organic overdose has been here for some time, and now, more and more manufacturers are labeling food to perfection, ensuring that with every carefully chosen word, they create the aura of organic or natural or at least, something better! This is the problem – anything that seems better than what you have been consuming is suddenly the trendsetter.

Myth: Bread is just empty calories! Grains have three parts: the endosperm, bran, and germ. White flour is made just from the endosperm, while whole wheat contains all three parts. And many of a grain’s nutrients are in the latter two components.

[Source: www.washingtonpost.com]

One such sorry state of affairs is seen in the white-bread landscape. Anyone and everyone who is even remotely into fitness or diet control is aware of these two, hated words - white + bread = unworthy of human consumption. Every health journal and food blog, and nearly every media resource around us seems to be preaching one thing – Don’t Eat White Bread!!

Why Fries? Are we ruining the entire burger experience?

This question has always been there in my mind. I'm already having a bun stuffed with fried patty, and the stuff is dripping juices, sauces, and dressings. I am getting a mouthful of bites with plenty to chew. What is eating is not light and seldom needs a follow-up or sides to reach satiety levels. Why do I need the fries? Why would people even ask for fries, let alone pay for them, rather than requesting a better-filled, more saturated burger experience? Usually, these fries feel sloppy and an unwanted add-on. I don’t mind a bit more veggies in the burger as they add more crunch to the bite. Fries don’t make sense because I don’t want to pause during the burger-eating expedition and deviate from what the taste glands are experiencing. For that matter, Coca-Cola remains a big spoiler for me if someone really wants to discover the real flavor of the meat patty or find out how under-prepared the bread is. For the calorie trackers, do you really want this addition when you are out to enjoy a wholesome burger? For the burger(paths), do the fries really enhance or uplift the eating experience? For those who have burgers just to fill their belly, is it necessary to gluttonize on the fries rather than perhaps follow up with a single serving of chocolate ice cream?

BEYOND PERSONAL OPINIONS: SHARING SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THIS SUBJECT GATHERED FROM THE WEB

What started the culture of serving fries with burgers?

The origins of serving fries with burgers can be traced back to the early 20th century in the United States. French fries were already a popular side dish at the time, and it is believed that they began to be served with burgers as a way to make the meal more filling and satisfying. The practice of serving fries with burgers became more widespread in the mid-20th century, as fast food restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King popularized the combo as a standard menu item.

Do restaurants charge a lot for the fries that accompany burgers?

The cost of fries that come with a burger can vary depending on the restaurant. In fast food restaurants, fries are often included in the price of a combo meal, which includes a burger and fries. In sit-down restaurants, fries may be offered as a side dish and priced separately from the burger. In these cases, the cost of fries can vary depending on the restaurant and location. Some restaurants may charge a premium for their fries, while others may offer them at a lower cost.

Is there a science of serving fries with burgers?

There is no specific science of serving fries with burgers, but there are several factors that can affect the overall experience of eating the combination. One factor is the timing of when the fries are served. They are typically fried twice, once at a lower temperature to cook the inside, and a second time at a higher temperature to crisp the outside. If the fries are not served immediately after the second frying, they can become soggy and lose their texture. Therefore, it's important for the fries to be served hot and crispy. Another factor is the seasoning of the fries. Different restaurants use different seasonings, such as salt, pepper, garlic powder, or even truffle oil, to give the fries a unique flavor. The seasoning should complement the flavor of the burger without overpowering it. Finally, the size and shape of the fries can also affect the overall experience. Thin and long fries are generally considered to be crispy, while thicker and shorter fries are considered to be more substantial. All in all, serving fries with burgers is a combination of culinary art, timing, and knowing the customers' preferences.

Is it the American way to serve fries along with burgers?

It is common in the United States to serve fries along with burgers, and it is considered a classic American fast food combo. The practice of serving fries with burgers became widespread in the mid-20th century, as fast food restaurants like McDonald's and Burger King popularized the combo as a standard menu item. However, it's worth noting that this combination is not exclusive to the United States and can also be found in other countries, particularly in countries that have been influenced by American culture. Nowadays, many restaurants around the world serve fries as a side dish to burgers and other sandwiches, and it has become a global phenomenon.

Do Europeans also serve a burger with fries?

Yes, it is also common in Europe to serve fries, also known as "chips," along with burgers. The combination of a burger and fries is popular in many European countries and is considered a classic fast food combo, similar to that in the United States. The tradition of serving fries with burgers in Europe can be traced back to the post-World War II period, when American soldiers were stationed in many European countries and brought their fast food culture with them. Many European fast-food chains and independent restaurants now serve burgers with fries as a standard menu item. In some countries, such as Belgium, fries are even considered a traditional dish and can be served with a variety of toppings and sauces.

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From artificially themed Rishikesh cafes to urban chic Bangalore bistros, why are expensive sourdough breads surfacing everywhere?

Moha Sets New Benchmarks for the Perfect Punjabi Makki-di-Roti

Moha's Makki Di Roti

It has been a blend of poor health, slow recovery, great food and trying to scrape my way to better health this winter season in Delhi. The food part is what am going to share today and I say this without a shadow of doubt that my wife, Moha is perhaps the best cook when it comes to truly north Indian food. Anyone in Delhi can challenge us and we will be ready with our gastronomic wisdom and the fortitude to take upon the most challenging recipes. Why am I babbling about like this? 

The Delhi Choley Bhature Scene is Changing but not for the Good!

The bloggers are rampant and uncontrollable when creating videos about it, supported by the inexplicable appetite of social media content consumers, and it seems that no matter what season of the year it is, there is one equally popular food option during the breakfast, lunch, and dinner timings - Choley Bhature. While every hood in the city has its own favorite, Instagram and YouTube continue to preach the top 5, 7, or 10 places to reach the holy grail of Choley Bhature, and surprisingly, people in Delhi, people from Delhi, those who grew up within the city are as curious and sometimes naive, following every bit of social content to explore a new 'Choley Bhature' destination. While this transformation set in over the last 5 - 7 years, with the post-COVID [WFH] lifestyles also contributing to the cause, the overall Choley Bhature scene in Delhi has changed and not everything about it needs to be romanced with words and not every change should have been welcomed.

Don't Preach about Micro-scoping Everything We Eat

There is a hell lot of online wisdom out there about how to choose, about how to be very careful about what we eat; however, some of these seem too preachy and at times, irritating! There is something very simple and unsaid about food that is good - you have to close your eyes to the obvious things that will not agree with a nutritionist's advice. Soulful food is invariably high in calories. Perhaps this is why it is so happy and big, and yes, it contains a lot of fat too, which you cannot enjoy if your conscience keeps asking you questions about the calorie count. However, what irritates me is that the people who have infused this habit of counting and measuring everything we are about to eat seem to have comfortably forgotten that we don't have that many choices. So many kitchen and grocery essentials are no longer in the safety zone. The simplest of herbs and spices, too, are now adulterated. We are trying to make the most educated decisions, buying what has been packaged better and procured more sensibly, at a premium rate.

Now, whatever little is left is, whatever scanty food options have managed to survive the commercialization holocaust, don’t need to be put under the lens in such a magnified way

There is a limit to how much we need to read into each food label. Why is this not the state government’s responsibility to handle? There are blogs about how some of the most common sweeteners are now cancerous or irritate the gastrointestinal lining. We shouldn’t need to check out the details across so many ingredients, many of which are highly industrial in nature and are not even in public ambit. As a consumer, you want to be aware and make educated choices, but when you are biting into a juicy-looking stea,k you shouldn’t be thinking about whether the marbling pattern indicates plasticized meats – yes, this is actually happening, now at a neighborhood food chain, near you!

Easy Fixes: Maybe You Need More Enzymes

Seems like yesterday when I tried Digiplex tablets for the first time - an ageing med that not many people know about and those who do, usually buy it for their grand-dads. Now, after many years of playing around with enzymes, I can confidently say that I can manage them with amazing accuracy!

Digestive Complex Tablets are Easy to Find

Here, I talk about some of the everyday health issues like recurring phases of indigestion. Contaminated environments are producing compromised foods and we don’t have too many options on the horizon. However, we can ensure that we digest better and extract the maximum nutrition from our daily meals. Peek into my experience of dealing with digestion-related issues without going overboard with medications…From the moment food enters our mouth to the phase where it is digested in the intestines, the body uses enzymes for processing food.

Belly Over Mind? Yes, this is a FOOD Website and does amazing stuff!

Click Here to Get the Original Recipe

I have a habit of scouting the web for interesting food stories [this link has some of NY's best from 2017]. Lately, I have been following baking a lot, ever since me and Moha started cooking together. However, we are at a nascent stage and nothing comes close to the type of classic baked recipes at this website. The ingredients are always so pure and there is no commercialization of the cause. If you have a genuine love for food, you will spend time in reading through the meticulous preparations. Not gone through their entire set of classic recipes but it seems the crusts are always red-baked, there is always some honey and butter & you might come across some easy hacks like using digestive biscuits to get the required texture without laboring much! This recipe is about a cream pie. I have always said that baked, contrasting combinations that use a bit of salt are always the best. You have salted caramel here and though I will never get to taste this heavenly creation, I can sense the awesomeness of it…

Updated on February 20, 2018

Some more interesting food-related, read-worthy updates that I wanted to share with you guys:

Around the time that Valentine’s Day blogs were getting viral, there was this cute little entry about Chyawanprash Pecan Butter Bites - for the uninitiated, this is rather strange, almost shocking for folks who know something about ancient Indian medicine stream called Ayurveda. Chyawanprash is essentially a mind and body tonic, an immunity booster that can be consumed by people of all ages. However, using it for something as good as pecan bites is beyond our imagination. The blog talks about how a crisp chocolate coating is used to blend the goodness of Chyawanprash with traditional European recipes. Not sure many people who have tasted Chyawanprash would turn-up to taste these goodies but the idea sounds very healthy-licious-ly doable.
[You can catch the original discussion here...]


This is for folks who love the richness of peanut butter and want to have it with chocolate, in a form that is bake-able and comes with easy DIY factor. The most difficult bit seems when you have to make the dough and fill it. This is where some kitchen expertise matters. The baking though is without any extra load of greasing - something I appreciate. However, I would add some more bitterness to the mix, like more cocoa content dark chocolate and some walnuts too - the pungency of aged walnuts creates more lovable contrasts...again, I always advocate food ingredients that are more of the opposites-attract state rather than those that complement each other.
[You can catch the original discussion here...]

Big sandwiches are good but when they turn meal-sized, are we still eating them like a sandwich?

The other day I was at Burger Place, Rajouri and I ordered the double-egg burger. Here, the burger patty was really big. It had been filled with poached eggs and lots of green veggies. The result was a true gastronomic delight. The eggs were slightly mushy and when pressed slightly almost hung tightly to either side of the burger buns like some industrial adhesive and the flowy sauces and cheese things were equally warm and orgasmic. However, I had a small issue. I just couldn’t eat the burger like a burger.

It was too big. It was oozing too much of the good stuff. I could not afford to press and kill my vulnerable patty. And I hate when the cheese starts to drip. So, the solution was finding refuge in a plastic fork and slowly eating away the hand-sized burger. Did this ruin the taste? Not really. I should say not at all. In fact, having a burger like a plateful of the meal was a refreshing experience. Now, when I compare this with some of the sandwiches I come across in Delhi’s cheese-based eat-out locations, it seems that eating these sandwiched, held-up like the traditional way of eating your bread is not really practical.

Some Thoughts about Salads Not Getting Enough Mainstream Attention

It is hard to point out when salads attained the importance they demand these days since every cuisine in the world would have obviously interacted with vegetables and fruits in a just-about-raw state with a little seasoning. Again, the history of cooking wouldn't be impossible without experimenting with foods in a less cooked way. Somewhere down the line, salads became an acquired taste, a dining table vital that is now synonymous with modern living. Nearly every cuisine would realize the importance of including some herbs in their food and the herbal purity is best consumed in a form that is not barbequed or deep fried - making salads an easy medium of catching up with those micro and macronutrients that cannot be included at all times in a rushed lifestyle irrespective of where you are catching up with the deadlines - at home, school, or the workplace.

A Little Bit About Salad History | Salad Evolution

While arguments continue over the Greek or Roman origins of the salad, it is perhaps in the Americas where the art of salad making, dressing, presenting, and consuming took upon a more serious role. There are so many salad history books that were trending in the Americas more than 100 years ago and in today's comparison, it was like hash-tagging the salad, and celebrating every type of salad, ranging from the candle salad to the chef's special salad and salads so elaborate, it would not be wrong to refer to them as a main course or proper food! Through these stages of salad's evolution, something became a bit blurred too. Salads were presented like the native salad, salads in a salad section, salads as a side dish, salad dressings, tossed-up fresh produce, and salads that came in a bowl, on platters, and those fortified with meats and things that were far, far away from being fresh from-the-farm or being herbal.

National Boston Cream Pie Day “Calories and Class: Why Boston Cream Pie Was the First Socially Acceptable Luxury”

The Boston Cream Pie is an edible paradox — rich yet respectable, decadent yet decorous. Born in a 19th-century Boston hotel kitchen, it wasn’t technically a pie at all, but a layered sponge cake laced with custard and capped with chocolate. What it truly became, however, was America’s first socially acceptable luxury — a dessert that managed to make indulgence look virtuous. At a time when moral restraint governed everything from women’s laughter to men’s diets, the Boston Cream Pie arrived like a polite rebellion. It was a dessert designed not to shock but to charm, dressed in civility even as it whispered temptation.