For our Food issue, we at Verve took inspiration from the widely known quote by French lawyer and author Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin and first considered how eating and the habits around it are attached to the act of sustaining not just the body but a way of life as well. We were then able to explore stories about the more profound symbolic value of food and its role in defining communal and individual identities. Chef and author Diya Sethi, in the cover story, rightly tells psychologist Tanya Vasunia that “the second brain of the body is the gut” and that her battle with anorexia-bulimia was followed by an immersion in culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu. Flip through the pages to find actor Pihu Sand who was made to gain 20 kgs without any nutritional or psychological guidance for her role in Fanney Khan while cinephile Sohini Chattopadhyay questions why, in Hindi cinema, the female characters’ enjoyment of a meal is usually linked to a pregnancy or a pathological condition. In the style pages, blogger and caterer Rhea Mitra-Dalal reveals the philosophy behind how she eats dresses and lives while she serves up some striking silhouettes. Also discover the stories of Rachael Krishna, an Indo-Burmese Brit in London, Sri Lankan artist Firi Rahman in Colombo and Swiss-Spanish urbanologist Echanove Matias of Urbz Mumbai who each diversely exemplify how personal adaptations of inherited food traditions become anchors that create a sense of belonging and, in more ways than one, a means of self-expression. On stands now.