An overload of nostalgia

Do we really need to reframe everything in terms of nostalgia? It's the new matcha—a dash here, a sprinkle there

- Shrabonti Bagchi

Pan Pasand ice cream. Cadbury's Fruit & Nut granola bhel. Restaurants named, unironically, "Nostalgia XYZ" (insert name of a city people have escaped because it was unliveable). Nostalgia is second only to matcha in terms of faddishness and overuse on restaurant menus across the world today.

It may have started with chefs delving into their childhood memories to create or reimagine dishes, which was great (what is cooking if not storytelling, after all?) or tapping into collective nostalgia for certain flavours associated with childhood. A hankering for Maggi from a shack during a trip to the hills, or the rose milk that amma forced you to drink that has unaccountably become a favourite. It was all delightful, till it started to become somewhat cynically overused.

What's next, one wonders—Cerelac ice cream (it exists); Machher jhol momos (thankfully, not yet)? Nostalgia is no longer the flavour of the month or the season; it feels like we have been wallowing in its sticky warmth for years now.