Plates from everywhere

Soaked tapioca with peanuts, green chili, and lemon. The Navratri and vrat plate that is actually good, not merely allowed.

Eggless, dark, and heavy with soaked fruit. The cake Kerala Christian kitchens bake in December — cloves, rum-soaked raisins, a tight crumb.

Fine vermicelli simmered in milk with dates and nuts. The Eid morning bowl — sweet, pale, and meant to be shared.

Slow-roasted gram flour, ghee, and sugar, rolled while warm. The Diwali tin. The tin that never lasts until January.

Steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with coconut, jaggery, and cardamom. Ganesh Chaturthi’s offering, and the best thing in the house that week.

Saffron rice layered with spiced potatoes, cauliflower, and fried onions, sealed and steamed until every grain is perfumed.

Chickpeas in a dark, tangy tomato-onion gravy. The north-Indian dhaba classic that turns a tin of beans into dinner.

A quick North Indian potato-tomato curry spooned over plain rice for a comforting weeknight plate.

Roasted wheat flour, ghee, nuts, and a little sugar. The prasad of Krishna’s midnight — satvik, crumbly, eaten by the handful.