Full plate

In searching for a home away from home, Copenhagen-based food designer Priya Mani created an Instagram encyclopaedia that takes her followers through a visual journey of India's culinary legacy.

- VAISHNAVI NAYEL TALAWADEKAR

Childhood memories have a curious way of slipping into adulthood, catching you off guard at the most unexpected moments. For Copenhagen-based food designer Priya Mani, the most vivid ones are etched on her taste buds: the comforting warmth of olan, a Keralan white gourd curry, spooned over steamed rice or the tangy sweetness of a neighbour's allam pachadi, an Andhra pickle made from ginger freshly dug from her backyard. And on quieter days, the simplicity of a bowl of injipuli, a sweet-sour pickle from Kerala, and rice, shared with her parents at the kitchen counter. "Because our family moved often when I was a child, my life became a taste trail of experiences," reflects Mani, who was born to a Keralan mother and a Tamil father, and raised across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad and the Middle East. "Most of the time, these dishes had nothing to do with my own community. Amma says that I didn't even speak Tamil for a long time. Those formative tastes came from other cultures altogether."

When Mani and her husband, Vinay Venkatraman, her batchmate from the National Institute of Design and the co-founder of the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, moved to the Danish capital in 2007, she took to recreating the dishes of her childhood, first as hearty meals for guests, and afterwards, as soul food for her own children. One day, inspired by the book