5 Indian Regional Films That Will Make You Look At Food Differently
From pork in Angamaly Diaries and fermented soybean in Axone to Bengali fish curry in Maacher Jhol, these Indian regional films show how food can reveal a place, its people and their relationship with home.
What does a film about a small-town rivalry have to do with pork? Or a family drama with fermented soybean? Quite a lot, as it turns out. In these Indian films, food is not simply something characters eat between scenes. It is part of the setting, the dialogue and, sometimes, the conflict. From the pork-heavy food culture of Angamaly to the fish-filled kitchens of Bengal, these films offer a way of seeing regional cuisines through the people who cook and eat them. They show how a dish can carry the character of a place, whether it is shaped by what grows locally, what a community has traditionally eaten or what families have passed down through generations. And sometimes, a single ingredient is enough to open up a much bigger story about home, memory and belonging.
Angamaly Diaries: When Pork Is Part Of The Plot
Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Angamaly Diaries (2017) is set in Angamaly, in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, and food is woven into almost every corner of its story. A fight breaks out over the last plate of rabbit meat at a thattukada, while the rivalry between the film’s gangs revolves around pork. Characters eat beef, pork and kappa—tapioca—and Pepe even compares his first love to kappayum muttayum, mashed tapioca with egg. The film’s obsession with food also makes it an entry point into Angamaly’s distinct culinary culture. Pork is prepared with ingredients such as yam, koorka and jackfruit seeds, while beef, plantain and pidi also feature in local cooking. Pellissery deliberately wanted to move away from the familiar cinematic image of Kerala as coconut trees and backwaters, instead showing a place where meat and local ingredients are central to everyday life. Watch it for the story, but expect to come away thinking about pork.
Kumbalangi Nights: Where The Water Reaches The Plate
Madhu C. Narayanan’s Kumbalangi Nights (2019) takes place in Kumbalangi, a fishing village on the outskirts of Kochi, where the water is as important to the story as the people living around it. The film’s food reflects that landscape, with fish and seafood appearing alongside the everyday meals of its four brothers. Karimeen, or pearl spot, is particularly associated with Kerala’s waterways, while Kumbalangi’s surrounding waters also support prawns, crabs, oysters and smaller fish. But the film’s kitchens tell another story. The brothers’ messy, doorless home stands in contrast to Shammi’s meticulously ordered household, and food becomes part of the film’s larger exploration of family, domesticity and control. As the brothers’ relationships change, cooking and sharing meals begin to mean something different too. In Kumbalangi Nights, the food is inseparable from the geography: this is a story set in a fishing community, and the landscape naturally finds its way onto the plate.
Axone: The Fermented Soybean That Started An Argument In Delhi
Nicholas Kharkongor’s Axone (2019) begins with a very specific culinary problem: a group of young people from Northeast India want to cook smoked pork with axone for a friend’s wedding in Delhi. Also called akhuni, axone is a fermented soybean product associated particularly with Nagaland and the Sumi community. Soybeans are cooked and fermented, traditionally near a kitchen hearth, producing a pungent ingredient used in meat and vegetable dishes. In the film, that distinctive smell quickly becomes a problem when neighbours object to the cooking. That conflict gives the ingredient a significance far beyond flavour. For the characters, axone is part of the food culture they have carried with them to Delhi, and cooking it becomes a way of recreating something familiar away from home. The film also points to the wider importance of fermentation in Northeast Indian foodways, where ingredients are preserved and transformed through processes that produce distinctive flavours. Suddenly, the question is no longer simply whether axone smells strong; it is why one person’s smell of home can become another person’s reason to complain.
Maheshinte Prathikaaram: The Taste Of Idukki
Dileesh Pothan’s Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016) is set in Idukki, and its food scenes are so woven into everyday life that you could almost use the film as a culinary map of the region. Tapioca, jackfruit, gooseberries, rice, fish curry, kanji, kumbilappam, tea, coffee and meat dishes appear alongside the characters’ daily routines. The film also brings Idukki’s agricultural landscape into view through ingredients and crops associated with the region, including black pepper, cardamom, ginger and coffee. What makes the food particularly effective is how ordinary it feels. Women peel tapioca, meals are prepared at home, tea accompanies conversations and kumbilappam—a steamed preparation made with jackfruit, rice flour, jaggery and coconut—appears as part of everyday hospitality. Food does not interrupt the story to announce that it is regional; it simply belongs there. And that is precisely what makes Maheshinte Prathikaaram such an evocative portrait of Idukki.
Maacher Jhol: Can A Chef Recreate His Mother’s Fish Curry?
Pratim D. Gupta’s Maacher Jhol (2017) starts with a deceptively simple challenge. Dev D, a successful chef based in Paris, returns to Kolkata after 13 years and is asked to recreate his mother’s maacher jhol, a light Bengali fish curry. He may have mastered sophisticated professional cooking, but reproducing one particular home recipe proves considerably harder. The film uses that struggle to explore food as memory, with the dish becoming a link between Dev and the home he has left behind. There is also no single recipe for maacher jhol: fish, vegetables, spices and proportions vary between households. That makes Dev’s task less about technical precision and more about remembering how his mother cooked. The film’s food scenes—including its komola katla, a fish preparation with orange juice—keep returning to the difference between professional cuisine and the food associated with home. Sometimes, the most difficult recipe to recreate is the one you thought you knew best.
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