Srijana Mitra Das It isn’t often, gentle reader, that a Presidential banquet becomes a topic of hot discussion. Generally, these are calm occasions where diners make elegant speeches and nibble on petite bites, like delicately stewed peaches. Recently, however, as India saw a flurry of high-profile diplomatic visits, the accompanying Presidential dinners were followed by some chatter. This focused first on the vegetarianism of the menus — why, asked some, were guests served roots, shoots and fruits in this land of kormas and kebabs? The next concern steamed up over the provenance of dishes. Some (with enviable amounts of free...