What's "Globivore"?

In a Nutshell: It's an encyclopedia for global cuisine. It's also a place for me to explore, deepen, and enhance my own relationship with food.

I've always been a bit of a whore for pleasure. Hated school, studying, sports, and socialising growing up. Food was another guilty pleasure. I'd smoke weed and eat so much that I'd throw up. Trauma dumping aside (sike, I'm just getting started), I've had an interesting arc with food. 

When I left my lifelong passion for animation to study Culinary Arts, it was fueled by insecurity. I've always loved anime, video games, philosophy, and storytelling. Still, in my first year of college studying Animation, I grew anxious because I "didn't have any real-world skills," just in case the world blew up or something, you know? (Yeah... I had some issues lol)

Do I regret it? Yes and no. Yes, because I genuinely love storytelling, and I might've been better at it today if I had stayed. No, because it gave me everything I needed at that point: friends, fun, and experiences. Sure, I did pick up a few "real-world" skills while working in the kitchen for a few years, but it also helped me get in touch with myself. Most importantly, I tried and tasted all kinds of things firsthand.

• I lived in a hostel, made friends, moved out, and went for hikes & music festivals.
• Ate everything at tons of different restaurants, both as a customer and as staff.
• Had traumatising experiences working at a hotel in my own town for just 6 weeks. 
• Did a 6-month internship in Mauritius, where I went to a kickboxing class (my first sport experience, period) and had my first taste of therapy (3 sessions with the resort's world-class workplace psychologist). 

I noticed that while everyone eats, we all have different ideas about food. While my fellow batchmates would (sometimes literally) cry because they missed "mummy ke paranthe," I never felt such an emotional connection to my home food. Since both my parents worked, we grew up eating cereal, McDonald's, and the colorful flavours of our carousel of diverse cooks. 

• I was delighted to eat the sausages, bread, and chicken drenched in chili paste that Mauritius offered. 
• At one of my first jobs, working at a home bakery in Jaipur, I loved eating homemade marwadi food (something I rarely had despite growing up in the same city).
• In Pondicherry, I was just as thrilled about poriyal, bonda, liver, and rice.

I also noticed that my friends, along with many chefs, had their own personal style of cooking. Now that I've become a professional writer, food has a special place in my life. I see it as a window into culture and history, a source of comfort and distress, survival, celebration, and much more. 

Yet my childhood blueprint still remains: at best, food is medicine or fuel, and at worst, a dangerous poison. When I joined Symbiosis Pune for Culinary Arts, I was relatively fit. Today, more than 5 years after leaving college, I'm in the worst shape of my life.

An addictive personality combined with a skewed relationship with food has a lot to do with that. On one hand, I have curiosity, interest, and enthusiasm about dishes, ingredients, techniques, and how they came to be. On the other hand, I'm forever chasing the high of guzzling down Wagyu beef in Mauritius. To find more peace and balance, I've decided to satisfy my curiosity through this blog. 

I also find myself searching for my own style of cooking:

• One that's varied and colorful, with worldwide flavors, but grounded in universal principles.
• Healthy, low-effort, & efficient most days to make room for occasional, glorious indulgences.
• A style that lets me walk into any kitchen, do a quick scan, and make something amazing.

To make that vision into reality, I present you: *drumroll* Globivore. (but you already knew that lol)

A personal blog, encyclopedia, & recipebook that lets me explore cultures, ingredients, and cuisines to find the stuff that repeats. So let's go, shall we?