Our Favourite Reads from 2023: Year-End Reading by Goya’s Writers
A compilation of some of our favourite food writings from across the world, as picked by Goya writers this year.
It’s been the end of another food-filled year. At Goya, we hosted events for our community across the country, and inaugurated our first ever Food Nerd Festival. We’ve also published a series of excellent food stories through the year, covering different regions and communities and showcasing little-known recipes. Our recommended reading is the latest in our #1000Kitchens, where we follow Dina Weber of SAPA Bakery as she prepares hutzelbrot, a German fruit bread that has been in her family for generations.
To end the year with some delectable reading, we asked our writers to share some their favourite stories around food. (You can thank us later.)
Instant Ramen gets an Upgrade: New Yorker
For many Americans, instant noodles might seem like the antithesis of a restaurant food: a punch line, the cheapest of the cheap eats, the culinary provenance of the broke and the dorm-dwelling. This perspective is decidedly not universal; outside the American bubble, especially in Asian countries, instant noodles are ubiquitous, beloved, and—perhaps most important—a starting point, a wiggly foundation upon which to build a glorious meal of meats, vegetables, condiments, and seasonings.
“This piece on instant noodles is a quick read; not too heavy on debates over food history, ethics or morality. It incorporates interesting aspects about visual culture and technology, too. I’m fascinated by most things relating to DIY culture, and this particular piece brought back fond memories of my days as a student eating ramen, purchased in bulk.” — Shriya Malhotra
How Food was Used to Control Indian Seafarers (Lascars): Scroll
Given the importance dietary edicts had in lascars’ lives, it is not surprising that Europeans began wielding food as an instrument of power. There are documented cases of officers who delighted in forcing Muslim lascars to eat pork…Europeans knew that by controlling food in the constrained environment of a ship, they could possibly regulate behaviour.
“I enjoyed the way Priyadarshini [the author] weaves academic references into her story-telling. She gives you a meaty story to read and several rabbit holes that you can lose yourself in, with links for additional reading.” — Ruth Dsouza Prabhu
The Secret World of Chips: The Guardian
Why does it take as many as seven years to launch a crisp? It starts – as everything does now – on computers. Global development director Tom Wade says PepsiCo uses a tool that “slurps up” every restaurant menu on the internet. “You look at which ingredients are starting to feature; you can see the number of restaurants in Europe using smoked paprika, the incidence of black salt in restaurants in such and such a region,” he says.
“I love this article because it shows how a product as simple as a chip can have so many different avatars across the world. It was published around the same time a certain Indian Instagrammer rants about Lays Indian Magic Masala flavour, which is why it was interesting to see what is the company does on a global level. Culturally speaking, it’s fascinating. Being Indian and experimenting Indian, Middle Eastern and South East Asian flavours on Italian palates has been educational. Immigration and immigrants have popularised flavours that you would not actually expect from a local population. It’s interesting when you read this article and think about authenticity in food, and where this leaves us.” — Kiran Vajpey
A Meat and Rice Dessert Loved by Royals: BBC
Like most things in the Indian subcontinent, there is no linear narrative around the mutanjan or its origins. The dish is not only proof of the fluidity of cultural exchange but also the complex ways in which food travels and evolves. It is clear, however, that the subcontinental mutanjan pulao, albeit interlaced with numerous strands of foreign and indigenous influence, evolved over time to acquire a distinct identity in the form of a pulao. And there's no one way to make mutanjan or mutanjan pulao.
“It tells the story of the dish with extensive historical background and how Mutanjan, which is the most common dessert in Pakistan, is different from Indian one. This kind of Mutanjan in Lucknow and Delhi is now a dying art. It tells the history of how the Persianate world connections shaped the gastronomic landscape of India during the Medieval period and how the Partition of India brought variations in our foods. —Ammad Ali
On the Benefits of Eating Local: Mint Lounge
The reason I always eat local is because that is what my parents did when travelling, which was entirely within India. An honest government servant, which is what my father was, could not afford to leave the country (when they retired and went abroad, they revelled in going local—Greek restaurants in Florida, Thai in Bangkok). When he was in service and deployed in interior Manipur, my father cheerfully ate grasshopper and rat. Most of our holidays were spent on 48-hour cross-country journeys on trains that crawled from one corner of India to the other… Lunch and dinner depended on what part of the country the train was rolling through: fiery chicken curry from Katpadi, in Tamil Nadu, spare, southern biryani wrapped in leaf and paper from Warangal (then part of Andhra Pradesh, now in Telangana).
“An insightful, easy read on the joys of adventurous eating whilst travelling that brings back fond memories of road trips across India. He revisits the time when life was slower and a bowl of steaming hot food at a small shack was the highlight of the day.” — Fareeda Kanga
The Farming Songs that are Keeping Millets Alive: The Locavore
Their rememorisation of Long-Hai [a weeding song] is a reminder that certain food memories linger in a community’s collective consciousness long after the food itself may have disappeared from people’s plates and farmers’ fields. Anthropologist Virginia Nazarea calls this a “cultural memory embedded in food and place”. It’s a memory that may be personal, but is also social and collective, passed down from one generation to another through oral traditions of songs, ceremonies, rituals, beliefs, and daily food practices.,
“What I appreciate about this write-up is its fresh and much-needed perspective on the true custodians of reviving farming and consuming millet in India and worldwide. It helped me realise the power of regional songs and storytelling in preserving the cultural memory of food and place!” — Haripriya Eswaran
Can Small Fish Bring Big Change?: Conde Nast Traveller India
Fine-dining has historically been about aspirational food and equally aspirational ingredients. And whether this is by way of global exotics or hyper-local foraged produce, what most diners expect is something outside of the things in the home pantry or your neighbourhood market. Small fish is one such thorny ingredient that doesn’t quite fit into this narrative both because of its accessibility and its associations as an everyman ingredient and staple across home kitchens in India. But now, depletion of juvenile fish stock across the oceans means that small local fish are slowly taking space in a global conversation around sustainability of seafood.
“This story is such a compelling, well-rounded insight into the world of Indian seafood from the lens of fine dine, conscious consumption, and culinary trends! Even as someone who doesn't eat fish, I was engaged throughout.” — Nuriyah Johar
Hospitality is Not Conditional: Vittles
Meanwhile, Indian Muslims are similarly summoned for their culinary cultures (often by the country’s panicked liberal imagination) to serve up biryani and other images of India’s diminishing syncretism. But as with others, the material and social conditions that Indian Muslims live in, and the routine threats to their livelihoods are ignored. With Kashmir, this becomes all the more insidious. Even as Kashmiris remain dispossessed by Indian rule, their self-determination dismantled and lands constantly under threat, Kashmiri hospitality and cuisine is demanded with entitlement by the scores of Indian tourists that travel to the region.
“This piece is probably the most impactful thing I have read all year. It resonates with me on so many levels, especially as an Indian Muslim cook who yearns (s) for a more elastic, reciprocal version of hospitality in the country and the world. The piece voices my desire to live a reality where I don't have to constantly use my food as a negotiation or constantly have to bear the burden of changing people's minds about my community.” — Taiyaba Ali
The Fight to Keep the 36-Course Kashmiri Feast Alive: The Juggernaut
The Mughal emperor Jehangir, when asked his dying wish, responded, “Only Kashmir.” The emperor likely was referring to not only Kashmir’s ecology, but also to its comforting cuisine: think shatteringly crisp lotus fritters, floral kahwa tea, and Kashmiri harissa — a fatty sheep dish. Legend has it that the Mughals were also served wazwan, a 36-course, meat-based meal, upon their annexation of the state in 1586. The feast is a non-vegetarian’s fever dream and a vegetarian’s nightmare.
“Mehr Singh blends food history and cultural reportage perfectly to produce an insightful, informative piece that’s everything I expect from contemporary food writing.” — Drishya Maity
The Bitter Taste of ‘Not Too Sweet’: Eater
Food remains at the center of the ongoing search for identity, belonging, and community within the Asian diasporas. One’s culinary traditions are a source of pride, something to reclaim. And it’s fun to rally around a dish or flavor that white people just don’t get. But with every declaration of what Asian food is or isn’t, what belongs and what doesn’t, is something, or someone, that gets cast aside. Asian American, which originated as a phrase to build solidarity, becomes one of adherence to norms and assumptions. If something sweeter means it’s supposedly less Asian, then where do these traditions, and the people who keep them, belong?
“As someone constantly teased for stopping at one gulab jamun because they’re “too sweet”, I was deeply intrigued by this investigation into the preference for “not too sweet” desserts. Jaya Saxena’s ability to weave history into socio-cultural insights is enviable, and made me question my own taste for tamed sweetness (new theory: potentially connected to my near-exclusive consumption of jaggery as a child). By the end of the piece, I couldn’t help but think of how white sugar has plummeted down the ranks of sweetness, from being synonymous with sophistication and power, to the vastly different symbolism it carries today.” — Zoya Naaz Rehman
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