Hyderabad’s Forest & Fire food festival celebrates India’s indigenous cuisine

Forest & Fire, a limited-time food festival at Novotel Hyderabad Convention Centre (NHCC) & HICC until July 26, is chef Harshita Kakwani's culinary journey through the forests of Central India.

A food researcher and culinary storyteller at Permit To Grill and Food Exchange, Harshita who hails from Indore,, draws on her time spent documenting the food traditions of indigenous communities, uncovering ingenious ways of using seasonal ingredients, preserving produce, and cooking over wood fire. The result is an ode to simplicity, with dishes such as puri made with urad and khapli flour, jamun transformed into a curry, and elephant foot yam in a tangy buttermilk gravy. On a cloudy afternoon, though, it was the Saoji chicken curry — made with whole spices and finished with a rice flour slurry — that perfectly suited the weather.