Odia cuisine dates back to the Vedic Ages and is stated by food researchers to have laid the foundation for many food cultures extending abroad to Bali. Odisha, Odra Desha, and Kalinga in the ancient ages have been established to have supplied spices to the Romans through its ports and shaped multi-religious culinary cultures from Buddhism to Jainism. Closer home and in more recent times, it is stated to have influenced the cuisine of its arch-food rival Bengal.

It is said that the chefs taken from Odisha to work with the Bengali zamindars shaped the cuisine of the land. Acclaimed food historian Chermaine O’Brien in her book, ‘Penguin Food Guide to India’ also notes the similarities in Bengali and Odia cooking. She goes on to write, “Odisha is a place where a culinary transition from north to south takes place as it shares a part of its border with the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh”.

What makes Odia food unique and lends supremacy among other traditions is its amalgamation of spirituality and sensual gratification that oscillates from the extremely austere and the frugal to the robust and sweet savouriness. 

Odia cuisine is mostly considered synonymous with Temple cuisine among which the Jagannath and Bhubaneshwar temple cuisines are the most popular ones. The food is cooked in earthen pots. A total of 10 pots are placed on the fire on top of each other wherein the top one is cooked first and the bottom one is cooked last. An interesting aspect of Odia cuisine is that it hardly has any spices or oil. But Odia cuisine has also a few best non-veg dishes ever invented in Indian culinary history.

A perfect Odia thali represents dishes made in home kitchens across the state, the meal looks delightful and inviting. There are curries and greens, cutlets and lentils, salad and curd, rice, and pitha. A drink called dahi pona, with a distinct banana and cardamom flavor, precedes the meal. “In Bhubaneswar, people still follow age-old customs related to food and use only local and seasonal ingredients to cook.

“People here love their food and eat it even outside their homes. Our local guests get upset if a significant portion of our buffet is not Odia. And has this popularity stepped beyond Odisha, I am compelled to ask. With pakhala bhaat, the fermented rice dish served with multiple sides, featuring on international television, young Odia chefs traveling across the world, and efforts of the government, Odia food is definitely finding its feet in the fine dining space even outside the state,” An Executive Chef from a star property in Bhubaneswar narrated.

The interest in traditional Odia dishes like pakhala bhaat, chattu rai, and dalma may be recent but the street food of the state has been popular for years now. Odia chaat, ghugni, dahi bara-aloo dum are legendary and the lassi here is world-famous. 

While Cuttack may sound like just another town to those living outside of Odisha, it is just 40 minutes away from Bhubaneswar, and hopping across the Mahanadi River to eat at the stadium is a common practice. Dahi bara-aloo dum is a combination that can only be found here.

Odia cuisine although may not have marked its entry into restaurants pan India, but have definitely marked its international presence. Potli, an Indian market kitchen, run by an Odia in London has been tickling the taste buds of Britons and countrymen alike since 2011, the year when it also played host to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

The restaurant was launched with a completely new concept, celebrating the Indian marketplace cuisine. “My favorite is vegetable chops (beetroot, peanut, and potato croquettes). I use my mother’s recipe to make a simple Odia prawn curry. Again, borrowed from my mother’s recipe is the Sambalpuri Janhi Chattu (ridge gourd and mushroom). And, one of our Sunday Odia staples is the Railway mutton curry (mutton on the bone with potatoes),” said the owner Uttam Tripathy. 

Dalma, undeniably Odisha’s first cuisine-branded food enterprise, is trailblazing. Megadiverse but grossly understated, Odisha’s cuisine suffered perennial anonymity. Dalma chain promoted by Deboo Patnaik, took up the cudgel and catered to Odia fine-dining almost with a missionary zeal but somehow still struggling to make its presence felt in other states. 

A few years back, Award-winning independent filmmaker Grace Lee expressed her interest in making a film on Odia food, known for its unique flavor and taste. I had different kinds of Indian food but some of the foods I tasted in Odisha are very unique like the powder (badi chura), shrimp (Chingudi checha), and fish with mustard gravy I never had. In the US when we go to any Indian restaurant they don’t serve this kind of dish. I heard a lot about the temple food of Odisha. It would be a great opportunity if I could make a film on Odia food,” were her words in one of the interviews. 

There is no dearth of flavors and tastes we talk of in Indian food. From East to West to North to South there is a variety of cuisine that have shaped the culinary map of the country. One such is Odia cuisine which is not much talked about or displayed out to the world. Interestingly to date, most of the cooks that one gets to see in Bengal and other areas happen to be Odia chefs but yet no dishes on the menu cards!