Most of us encounter food after it has already been cleaned, packed, transported and placed on a shelf.

Forest to Fork takes you a few steps back.

Where does it grow?
Who knows it?
When is it available?
How is it harvested?
Why do people eat it?
And what does it become in the kitchen?

But there’s another question we want to explore:

What did we eat before today’s familiar kitchen took shape?

Our food traditions have changed over time. Some ingredients that now feel deeply regional became part of Indian kitchens only in the last few centuries, while many native forest foods have become less common in everyday diets.

What did people eat before chillies, tomatoes, potatoes and other now-familiar crops became part of the plate? What did the forest provide? Which greens, roots, shoots, fruits and flowers were gathered seasonally? What did they taste like? And why were some of these plants valued not just as food, but for their traditional medicinal uses?

Across the Western Ghats, ethnobotanical research has documented extensive knowledge of wild edible plants and their culinary and medicinal uses, while also noting that this knowledge is increasingly being lost or marginalised.

The forest has long been a source of seasonal food and traditional plant knowledge. Some of that knowledge is still alive in village homes. Some is becoming harder to find.

Forest to Fork is an attempt to go looking for that knowledge with the people who still remember it.