New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- Taylor Swift apparently spends 60% of her time talking about bread ("it's a loaf story," to quote her)-as I learnt from a reel I came across while trying to avoid getting down to the real work of the day (or should I say loafing about the internet?). It made me wonder when we became so obsessed about what came out of a packet and was eaten when we were sick.

Bread is no longer just white and sliced-it's crusty, fermented, proofed, pillow-soft, charred, dipped in oils, studded with seeds. And in India, it's gone beyond naan, roti, parotta, khambir, poee, pav, or any of the zillions of regional variations we have as chefs are dusting off old recipes, creating new ones, and serving them in excitingly delicious ways, as ...