Local heroes

Venturing deep into India's hinterland, Prerna Garg culls out unique ingredients and traditional ecological knowledge to make city dwellers question what they eat and where it comes from.

- SNEHA MEHTA

EVEN THOUGH SHE works with food, Prerna Garg doesn't consider the kitchen her workspace. Instead, her operation sites span a vegetable market in her hometown of Mubarikpur in Rajasthan, a childhood memory of a ber (Indian jujube) seller, conversations with a 92-year-old farmer about the hardy khejri tree and research papers about genetic biodiversity in Indian melons. Garg then shapes all this carefully collected knowledge into dishes for immersive dining experiences hosted by A Dialogue, her culinary practice based on traditional Indian ecology.

The 39-year-old’s quest to excavate and preserve regional flavours found a partner in her engineer husband Nitin Sisodia, leading to long conversations about the contrasting biodiversity of her home in Alwar, Rajasthan and his in Aamgaon, Madhya Pradesh. “Nikhil and I were exposed to nature early in life and share the same inquisitiveness about how it all works,” Garg says. From these conversations and the impulse to take India's food stories to a global audience, A Dialogue was born in 2020.