When author Colleen Taylor Sen sat to write Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food In India, which released in May, she had 30 years worth of research data. “I have been collecting more information for ‘if and when there is ever a reprint’. There’s so much to add.”

“The Vedas contain a lot of information about what ancient Indians ate. There is no documentation of the Indus Valley civilisation, though there is presence of archaeological material,” says Sen, who referred to an online translation of the Vedas, and even consulted Sanskrit specialist Professor David Gitomer, for the book.