By treating Indian produce as low brow, we're pushing indigenous crops out of market

One of my biggest inspirations and frustrations is that India is a country that has much to offer in terms of food, culinary diversity, and ingredients. We have a great cuisine, loved by many. Our plethora of ingredients —vegetables, fruit, grain, greens — is second to none. Yet, we are increasingly focused on what is not Indian.

At some point we need to ask: what is it that we stand for in terms of our food? To me the choice is simple: it is to cook and eat what's grown here, and what has been grown here for hundreds of years. Consuming these ingredients is what contributes to our health as well as our agricultural health.

Seasonality does justice to what we eat for a number of reasons. When you eat fruit and vegetables that are in season, they are inexpensive, have great flavour and are easy to cook. You also don't have to do too much to it in the cooking process, and you give yourself considerable variety.

Today, we make up our minds on what to eat before we step out to dinner. We don't see what's the freshest thing there. This is not how we eat in our homes. At times you'll go to a market and the fishmonger will tell you that the surmai is not fresh today, so you buy something else. You will not insist that you want to eat that one thing, even when it is not fresh or in season. We have become a 'how do I get everything that I want' society.

It's time we started to look within at India's produce. We have so many squashes and greens that we neglect. In India, the pumpkin is reviled, but in America, the squash is celebrated. All of these, from red amaranth to poi saag and ponkh, can be a pleasure to cook with; unfortunately we don't find them on many menus. We treat our produce as too low brow. As a result, we are pushing these out of the market. In reality, this is the produce that our farmers really know how to grow. They are suited to our weather conditions and growing cycles. It helps growth of our harvests as well as leads to healthy soil. Instead, we are pushing our farmers to grow European vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, and zucchini.

India has been a poor country for long, that it's good to see people who may have been farm hands, move out of areas they were traditionally tied to, and make their way up through education. Yet, we must remember to take our food culture with us. Forgetting it makes us forget who we are. Our collective forgetting is reflected in recipes that are dying out. It's fine to progress but in the name of progress, we are throwing by the wayside the things that have nourished us for centuries and have helped build our culture.

Whether it's meat or the vegetable, we need an awakening of respect for the ingredient, which also reflects in using all of it. If it's an animal, we don't eat only one steak, and throw the rest away, that's disrespectful—we find uses for all parts of it. If it's a vegetable, from skin to fruit to leaves and stem, we come from a culture that once found a use for all parts of it. West Bengal is one region where utilisation is still prevalent —whether it's a fish head's curry or using pumpkin skins, there is pride in using all parts of an ingredient. We have replaced the rich variety of our rice species, from black to brown to red, broken, whole, with the ubiquitous basmati. The cultural shift in food needs to be about looking at what we have around us.

The biggest change we need to make is in ourselves. We need the government to change its policy but we also need advocates of the right kinds of food to create far-reaching change. We need consumers to be willing to pay higher prices for fresh, well sourced food, and we need the chef community to put their might behind seeing where this can go. In a balanced meal our culture is taken forward.

The author is Culinary Director & Partner, The Bombay Canteen, Mumbai, and Chef & Owner, Paowalla, New York