The first thing you learn when you begin to explore the cuisines of India’s heterogeneous regions is how little you know about Indian food. This is true even if you already know that you know very little about Indian food: you discover that you know even less than you thought you did. The other thing you learn is how relatively meaningless the terms we use to describe Indian regions are. Going from talking about “Indian” cuisine to talking about “North Indian” or “South Indian” or “North East Indian” cuisines is progress but barely begins to scratch the surface. Drilling down from South Indian to Tamil, for example, may seem like a great deal of granularity but, again, the foods of different Tamil communities, sliced by religion, caste, tribe, sub-region etc. can differ widely from each other. I knew all this, so you might think me very well informed. And so I am happy to tell you that in April I ate an extensive meal featuring the food of a community from the Nilgiris in western Tamil Nadu that I had not even heard of before: the Badagas. I am even happier to tell you that this was one of the very best meals I have eaten all year, whether in India, South Korea, Japan or the United States. Continue reading →