Everything’s Not Curry: What Cooking Taught Me About Writing

Spice, Stories, and the Tyranny of Labels

"What's that curry you're making?" they ask, while I'm stirring daal. Or sambar. Or kadhi. Or literally any Indian dish that involves a pot and a hint of turmeric. I’ve started keeping a mental bingo card of how many distinct dishes get collapsed into that single word. Yesterday, someone called my rajma ‘kidney bean curry’ and I died a little inside. It's like calling every Italian pasta dish ‘spaghetti’ or every British meal ‘sandwich.’ Not wrong, exactly, but so very wrong.

Since moving to London from Mumbai, I’ve realised this isn’t just a slip of the tongue. It’s an entire culinary worldview. For many here, ‘Indian food’ = ‘curry.’ End of story. And because I am a writer, this flattening hit me with the force of a metaphor. It reminded me of how readers, editors, and entire industries often flatten writing into the simplest possible category, stripping away nuance in the name of convenience.

Everything is not curry. And everything is not just a ‘story.’ Let me explain.

The Spice Rack Problem

Think of a spice rack. hing, coriander, turmeric, hing (asafoetida), mustard seeds, garam masala — each with its own sharp personality. One brightens, one grounds, one heals, one punches you in the nose. Together, they form the backbone of Indian cooking. Now imagine someone pointing to the whole lot and saying, ‘Ah yes, curry powder.’ The horror!

That’s what it feels like when people look at writing and say, “So when are you writing your novel?" As if every word that emerges from a writer must assemble itself into the same dish. Essays, flash fiction, prose poetry, blog posts, micro-memoirs. All of these are as real and worthy as rajma, sambar, and kadhi. To reduce them all to ‘a novel’ is as absurd as thinking hing and turmeric do the same job. (Trust me, if you confuse those two, you’ll know instantly.)

When you write, you pick your spices with care. Sometimes you need the sharp crackle of dialogue, sometimes the earthy base of description, sometimes the heat of conflict. If all you reach for is the premixed ‘curry powder’ of storytelling - predictable arcs, standard plots, cookie-cutter characters - the work will taste flat. Balanced writing, like balanced food, demands precision and respect for individuality.

Archetypes Aren’t Recipes

The curry problem also reminds me of archetypes in storytelling. We love a neat box: the Hero, the Villain, the Mentor, the Sidekick. They’re useful - like base spices - but if every villain is a mustache-twirling madman or every hero is a chosen one with a tragic backstory, we’re back in bland curry territory.

Think about it: Voldemort and Sauron may both fall under ‘villain,’ but they’re not the same flavour. Hannibal Lecter is terrifying, yes, but he’s also cultured, witty, unsettling in his civility. He’s not just ‘evil curry #42.’ He’s a dish that shocks you with sweet and savoury notes at once. Writers know nuance is where the flavour lives.

The temptation to over-rely on archetypes is real. It’s easy. It sells. But when every narrative tastes the same, you lose the joy of discovery. A great writer knows when to use the base spice and when to throw in something unexpected.

The Flattening Power of Labels

The publishing industry, much like the London high street takeaway, adores a label. ‘Immigrant novel.’ ‘Coming-of-age story.’ ‘Commercial fiction.’ Labels sell, just as ‘curry’ sells. But when your painstakingly balanced kadhi gets served under the same neon sign as ‘generic curry,’ something inside you wilts.

This isn’t just about food. It’s about identity. When I introduce a piece of writing as ‘an essay,’ people sometimes look faintly disappointed, as if I’m serving up leftovers instead of a feast. A novel, on the other hand, is treated as the five-star dish. But what if the essay is the Indian thali, with more variety and surprise than the neatly plated roast?

Writers push back against this flattening by experimenting with hybrid forms. Lyric essays that masquerade as memoir. Short stories that read like prose poems. Nonfiction with the pulse of fiction. These are our ways of saying: daal is daal, sambar is sambar, flash fiction is flash fiction. If you must call it something, call it by its rightful name.

Writing as Thali, Not Curry Bowl

Here’s the metaphor I love most: a thali. A plate with compartments. Contrast and balance. Sweet next to sour, crunchy beside soft, spice mellowed by cool yogurt. No one points at a thali and says, ‘What a lovely curry.’ They admire the whole, while recognising the parts.

Writing is like that. A good piece holds multiple tones - humour beside grief, dialogue beside description, research beside memory. To call the whole thing ‘a story’ is technically true, but it misses the artistry of how the parts play off each other.

The thali reminds me to respect contrasts in writing. You need the quiet paragraph before the loud revelation, the reflective aside before the big climax. Readers don’t want to eat just one note of spice over and over. They want the symphony.

The Craft of Seasoning

Another thing cooking taught me: seasoning happens in layers. You temper spices in hot oil, add them at different stages, let them bloom before combining. Writing works the same way. You don’t dump all your imagery, research, and clever turns of phrase into one paragraph. You stagger them, let them unfold. The reader tastes each layer, then the blend.

Over-seasoning a story is as bad as under-seasoning. Too much metaphor and your prose clogs the palate. Too little rhythm and it tastes bland. The craft lies in knowing when to sprinkle lightly and when to go bold.

Writing Against Reduction

Every time I correct someone about curry, I feel a flicker of resistance. Not just against culinary ignorance, but against the broader human tendency to flatten. To simplify. To make things easier for the consumer, at the expense of truth.

As writers, we fight against that reduction every time we pick the harder form, the unexpected structure, the label-defying hybrid. We remind the world that rajma is not sambar, that flash fiction is not a novel’s ‘rough draft.’ We fight for the hing - the tiny, pungent thing that makes the whole dish sing.

The Takeaway (Pun Still Intended)

So yes, I am launching a one-woman campaign to educate London (and perhaps the publishing industry) that everything is not curry. Complexity matters. Names matter. Flavours matter.

Writing, like cooking, is about care. About resisting the urge to dump everything into one pot and call it a day. About honouring each ingredient, each form, each character, each sentence for what it brings to the whole.

The next time someone asks me about my ‘curry,’ I’ll smile sweetly and say, "It’s actually rajma." And the next time someone asks if I’m working on a novel, I’ll say, "It’s actually an essay." One bean at a time, one paragraph at a time, I’ll fight the flattening.

Because everything is not curry. And thank goodness for that.