title: Flavours of Delhi: A Food Lover's Guide
author:  Charmaine O'Brien 
description: Charmaine O'Brien has trained as a chef, run her own catering business and developed cooking classes for an institution for adult education.
zlib_text: NTRODUCTION:
  Every kitchen is magical and every person who cooks is a magician. For it is
  not only
  the ingredients that make a recipe what it is, but also the years of skills and
  honing and perfecting it that goes in to it. Add to that, the taste that we
  develop while growing up on specific recipes and the aroma of which
  instantly transports us to our childhood or
  another memory associated with it.
  Food is like that. It grows on us, making its way to our hearts through the
  stomach. The
  recipes from Kolkata, the cultural capital of India, is just that. A haven for
  foodies, for its melt-in-the-mouth sweets, tangy street food and several
  mouth-watering dishes, Kolkata
  is a city to reckon with for its rich culinary traditions.
  The dishes in the region are significantly inspired and influenced by the
  several
  invasions and migrations to the state over the centuries. While it was the
  Mughals that
  brought in the aromatic biriyanis and various thick gravies, the Haka Chinese
  immigrants brought 