It’s almost innocuous when it starts: perhaps it began when you first corrected someone’s butter chicken recommendation. Or when you started compiling a Notes app list of the thalis you’ve eaten, and places you still need to visit. Maybe it’s the way you feel an irrational pride when someone you’re with orders the dish you always order. You didn’t join on purpose, but before you knew it, you were part of one. That’s the thing about food cults: nobody hands you a membership card. You just wake up one day, and you’re in.
For me, it started with Diet Coke. Now, I’ve never been a Diet Coke fan, but strangely, during my pregnancy, it was one of those things I dreamed about constantly. That crisp, refreshing taste, coupled with the sweetness and caffeine: my brain romanticised washing down a meal of greasy Chinese food with a cold Diet Coke, over and over again. And then, when I was finally able to crack open a can after nine long months, I was thrilled. I knew then that I was a convert.
For those in the know, Diet Coke scratches a very specific itch. Anaheez Patel, a nutrition and fitness creator and fellow Diet Coke enthusiast, described it to me as a “perfectly engineered sensory event”: the pssst when you open the can; a freezing cold hit; a sharp acidic bite right after you eat something indulgent and need to wash it down. Per Patel, it’s unmatched.
She isn’t the only one who thinks so: Delhi and Mumbai have both recently hosted Diet Coke parties, with Gen Z turning up in DC-coded merch to drink cola spiked with pickles and chaat masala, with zero involvement from the brand itself. What started as an Instagram gag became a real, sold-out event: a community organised entirely around a shared love for a fizzy drink. To me, these parties feel less like endorsements of a particular beverage and more like the performance of membership of a very specific cultural tribe.
In India, we know that this obsession around specific foods and drinks isn’t limited to a cola brand. Start talking about the best phuchka, mishti or rolls in Kolkata and watch tempers flare. Sibendu Das, a self-confessed “food explorer” who leads mishti walks in the city, says that a person’s food preference can tell you much about their personality. “The general notion is that in Kolkata those who prefer their mishti from Nakur (Girish Chandra Dey & Nakur Chandra Dey) are purists and prefer things the traditional way, as that is the style of mishti they churn out. Whereas if you’re a Balaram Mullick & Radharaman Mullick fan, chances are that you have a more experimental palate and enjoy the innovations around mishti the store has done over the years.”
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu wrote extensively about how taste, the things we consume, the way we consume them, the preferences we display, functions as a form of social currency. He called this cultural capital: the idea that what you choose to eat, drink, wear or listen to signals your position within a social field, often more powerfully than you intend.
In a world where everyone can clock a logo, the subtler signals of taste have become more interesting. Similar to other sub-groups in pop culture, our food preferences, like Meghana vs Nagarjuna biryani in Bengaluru, all signal a very #IYKYK vibe. They are personality markers that require a certain kind of cultural fluency to understand, and that fluency is part of the point.
In Mumbai, the debate around Trishna’s butter garlic crab is an evergreen one. While some folks in the city frequent the seafood restaurant almost every weekend just for this dish, others swear by seafood institutions like Gajalee and Chaitanya. As Trishna’s most famous branch in the city is in Kala Ghoda, the subtext around it is that it’s a tourist hotspot (owing to its proximity to the heritage neighbourhood), and not a local favourite.
Even your pani puri allegiance says more about you than you’d think. Bandra’s Elco signals a certain caution: they famously use Bisleri, which makes them the safe, widely known choice. Not too far away is Punjab Sweet House. Patronage here suggests you’re more fluent with the city’s food scene; unbothered by the absence of gloves and distilled water, you chase taste and flavour. This logic extends to butter chicken in Delhi. Whether you get your butter chicken fix from Gulati, Moti Mahal or Daryaganj says a lot about you, indicating your insiderness, your appetite for adventure, pleasure and value as a diner. The same is the case for Bangaloreans and their choice of darshinis. Each cult has its own rituals and behaviours.
Being in the know feels good. That’s the whole point of the cult: the rituals and the sense of belonging. But food preferences don’t always build a community, they also draw borders. In the context of food, these lines get drawn constantly, often with the subtext of religion, class and caste. As friendly as it may seem, the conversation between a Nakur purist and the Balaram Mullick fan then isn’t only a debate of two different sweets, they are claims about the kind of person they are, and, by extension, the kind of person the other isn’t.
Das has seen this “friendly othering” play out in his hometown of Chandannagar in West Bengal. The city is famous for its jol bhora sandesh, a sweet filled with liquid date palm jaggery, that was invented by the proprietor Surjya Kumar Modak, and received a GI tag recently. The family has since set up a number of stores around the city, and a person is judged based on which shop they frequent. “There’s only one right answer,” he laughs, with the certainty of someone who has navigated many such debates, “and it’s not the one that’s Insta-famous.” Knowing the right answer is the membership fee.
Smitha Menon (@smitha.men) is a food journalist and the host of the Big Food Energy podcast.