A new AI initiative is decolonising your plate one recipe at a time

Vishal Nicholas says that colonial farming policy changed what we could grow, and so there was a devolution in Indian food quality. PIC/ISTOCK

Did you know khichadi once had way more dal than it did rice? After the British colonised India, the dish went through a makeover, but not with the intention of making it better. "Colonial agricultural policy pushed pulse cultivation out to marginal lands to make room for cash crops, driving up the cost of dal relative to grain. Over time, the ratio flipped until khichadi became mostly polished rice with a token hand of mung," explains Kranti Cookbook, a new initiative that wants to decolonise your plate.

Vishal Nicholas

"Food is oral history," says Vishal Nicholas, chief creative officer of Glassbox - the advertising agency behind the initiative, "In fact, there are books that record our food history. And yet, we have completely forgotten about it."

Nicholas and team found around 10 books from the eighth to the 16th century - right before the arrival of the British in the early 17th century - that record the recipes that shaped India before the British could alter them. These books span Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, vedic languages, and even Farsi. The titles are Ksemakutūhala, Lokopakara, Manasollasa, Bhojanakutūhala, Susruta Samhita, Pakadarpana, Ni matnama-i-Nasir Shahī, Sūpa sastr, Bhavaprakasa, and Caraka Samhita.

Nicholas says that colonisation forever altered the way India ate. "There has been devolution. We have regressed. The grains we had earlier were a lot healthier. Colonial crop policy changed what farmers could grow. The method is still the same, but the ingredients have changed," Nicholas says, "The British pushed towards cash crops. They also wanted their mills to run. So they forced white polished rice."

After colonisation the protein, fibre, and calcium content of khichadi went down; glycaemic load and fat content went up. PIC/ISTOCK

And so, rice became the primary ingredient in khichadi. Its protein, fibre, and calcium content went down; glycaemic load and fat content went up after colonisation. Kranti Cookbook's AI bot will deliver all this information to you when you ask it for a recipe: how it originated, how colonisation changed its health value, how colonial policy affected the farming of the dish's ingredients, and of course, the recipe. "A food that is meant to soothe you in sickness has become much more unhealthy after colonisation," Nicholas sighs.

"The idea the Glassbox team had is to have a one-stop interactive resource that brings back our food," Nicholas says. The chatbot can converse in English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, and Kannada.

During the journey to create Kranti Cookbook, Nicholas found many interesting facts about Indian food. Like how tomatoes and chili are not indigenous ingredients. "Now they're the basis of almost every curry but it wasn't always like that. Indians used pepper to spice food instead of chilli - specifically pippali pepper, which is known for its medicinal properties. It would make your immunity stronger and safeguard you in changing seasons."

In fact, certain etymological theories suggest that the word curry itself - which exists in pretty much every culture - comes from the Tamil word for black pepper, karimulagu. Black pepper was the primary ingredient that gave curry its distinctive spicy taste. "But karimulagu wasn't too easy for the British to say," Nicholas jokes.

Now they've introduced a new feature where users can add their own ancestral recipes. "And then we verify the recipe. All of them have to have existed before colonisation. For example, if you add the recipe for pav bhaji, it won't accept it. Because pav bhaji was invented in the 1970s," Nicholas says. So is the case for vada pav (invented outside Dadar station in 1966), dal makhni or butter chicken (invented in the late 1940s by Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi). It seems that all of this writer's favs were invented post-colonialism. Sigh.

The choice to make Kranti Cookbook an AI bot was a deliberate one. "We could have even made just a website, but we realised that in the world that we live today, it needs to be interactive," Nicholas says, "But considering that we at Glassbox work on AI with our clients on a regular basis, we're aware about AI ethics and we've limited it. The AI bot has been fed only the 10 books we used for research. It can only source information from there. So if you ask it, ‘What is World War II?' It will say, ‘I'm sorry, I don't know,' because it doesn't have the resources to get that information."

Kranti Cookbook ultimately found partnership in Two Brothers India Farms, a Pune-based farming company that sells organic foods. "It hasn't been an easy journey, first in sourcing these books, then translating them one by one. It is a painstaking endeavour and an expensive one. Two Brothers has really helped us in that sense. They've poured in money, send brochures to their customers with information on Kranti Cookbook," Nicholas says.

"The aim isn't to go back in time. We're not saying that modern food is bad and we should all go back to eating only traditional food. But rather, to start a movement that reminds India of her rich culinary heritage and revive the traditonal ingredients and preparation styles that were lost to colonialism. It was very important for us to not alienate any food groups, but just offer some information," Nicholas signs off.

Log on to: kranticookbook.com to try