‘Why do we know so little about Dalit food?’: A Wknd interview with author Shahu Patole

He wants less secrecy, more pride, around this food. The English translation of his book, Dalit Kitchens of Marathwada, certainly helps in that mission, he says

If we are what we eat, then shouldn’t eating sattvic (plant-based or “pure” food) make one sanatan like a Brahmin, asks Shahu Patole.

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. The 62-year-old former civil servant and author does not wish to be a Brahmin .

But it is a question that has rattled around in his head since his years growing up in the town of Khamgaon near Osmanabad, the son of a peon at a tehsil office, and a farm