Lamenting the loss of your mother’s recipe book is no longer an option to postpone cooking that authentic Chennai carrot and beans poriyal. The Internet is teeming with recipes—not just the exotic European dishes but desi and homely food.

We have the NRIs to thank for this trend, says food critic Vikram Doctor. “Indians abroad stuck in remote parts of America were trying to make authentic Indian food and when they had their first exposure to the Internet they began exchanging recipes online. They were equipped with digital cameras to capture those yummy dishes,” he says. “Technically, it is this what kicked off the trend.”

The food is usually community specific: there are special sites for Tamilians, Malayali vegetarians, Maharashtrians, Kashmiris and Telugu speakers— even Anglo Indian food. Of course it’s all written in English. The trend has caught on with housewives, grandmothers and a scattered few male householders who do not mind discussing food over bikes.

Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, a gastronomy writer and content consultant, believes that things became easier with the advent of the weblog. “A blog is an online dairy and everyone as likes to talk of their specialties online. It’s popular among housewives and is an outlet for expression as it takes away the drudgery of cooking three meals a day,” says Ghidiyal whose blog, a-perfect-bite.blogspot.com, has been awarded the most successful blog by ABC Australia. Ammini Ramachandran’s peppertrail.com is a treatise on vegetarian food from Kerala. It has even been published as a book.

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