Nik Sharma On Defining His Own Food Narrative

Food writer, photographer, cookbook author, and recipe developer Nik Sharma originally moved to the United States from Bombay, India, to study molecular biology. However, after pursuing a master’s degree, he decided to pivot to a more food-focused career. After launching an award-winning food blog and writing a few cookbooks, it’s clear to Nik and his fans that he made the right choice. Squarespace had the opportunity to sit down with Nik to learn more about how he made that career transition, how he finds inspiration for his recipes, and what advice he has for other aspiring food-obsessed writers.

SQUARESPACE: In 2011, after studying biochemistry and pursuing a master’s degree in public policy, you decided to launch your website, a food blog called A Brown Table. What inspired you to create this food-specific platform?

Nik Sharma: At the time, I was completely absorbed in academia and research and I looked to cooking for my friends as an outlet for fun and to be creative outside work. Blogs were popular then, and at the insistence of my friends and family, A Brown Table was born. I thought it would be a way for me to share the foods I cooked and loved to eat, but it also became a way for me to develop and share a visual perspective on food. A blog by nature is a visual platform and it gave me an opportunity to learn something new, food styling and photography.

SQSP: Since the start of your blog, you’ve been a writer, a chef, a photographer, and recipe developer. By owning all of these roles, you essentially have full creative control over your output. Is there one part of the process that you find particularly satisfying? 

NS: That’s a tough one. It’s hard for me to separate these different aspects of my creative process from each other, since they all influence my work in different ways and I’ve been trained to use all of them simultaneously. In my career in food, I’ve been extremely fortunate to get the opportunity to not only cook and share the food I love but also create the visual aesthetics around it. At times this can get challenging but it helps me with defining my own narrative around food.

SQSP: Your new cookbook, The Flavor Equation: The Science of Great Cooking, just came out in October. In this book, you explore the ways in which difference scientific components influence how we experience food. How do these components affect the way you approach cooking?  

NS: The Flavor Equation is about the different components that go into building and experiencing flavor in food. Food is dynamic and we’re constantly interacting with the ingredients in our meals and those ingredients in turn are interacting with us. The two most common elements of flavor are aroma and taste but there is so much more to this experience. Think about the emotions that affect your mood when you cook or eat and how food can affect your emotions. For example, when your favorite sports team wins a game, does your appetite increase and do you crave some kind of food in particular? Sight and sound help us determine if our produce will taste delicious: the deep red color of a ripe strawberry or tapping a watermelon gently to determine ripeness are both indicators of a sweeter taste. Even the mouthfeel or texture of food helps us appreciate the taste: a slight change in a familiar shape of a bar of chocolate can create the perception that chocolate doesn’t taste as good even though the recipe to prepare it was unaltered.

Aroma is what we always remember when we’re nostalgic about food and some scents whet our appetite while others do the complete opposite. The final component of this equation is taste - sour, sweet, savory (umami), bitter, and saltiness. There’s one taste that I included in this book, the taste of fat or oleogustus - it’s not yet officially a taste but there is a growing body of research that appears to support it. And finally, heat or fieriness - which isn’t a taste but rather a response to irritation brought about by certain substances in food like the capsaicin in chillies that we’ve evolved to love. It was important for me to bring all these components together in the book since they all influence our perception of flavor. 

SQSP: Before writing this new cookbook, had you explored other ways in which science influenced your approach to food?

NS: My background in science and public policy is where I first noticed how science affects cooking and eating and our behavior. I later worked as a photographer at a food delivery startup where I got to see how data and analytics looked at consumer behavior and how people responded to the various food options on menus. 

SQSP: In terms of incorporating lessons into their own eating and/or cooking rituals, what do you hope your readers take away from The Flavor Equation?

NS: My main takeaway would be, pay attention to how your body and mind respond to the food you cook and eat. Eating and cooking can be and are extremely rich experiences at various levels because they involve so many different senses that inform us along the way to enjoy or dislike our experience. It helped me and also I hope you, a much more thoughtful cook. Knowing what’s happening in a pot on the stove and why ingredients taste a certain way or why things transform during cooking is empowering. 

SQSP: During the pandemic, as many people have spent more time at home than their usual routines would allow, many have turned to food and cooking as a way to cope with external stressors. Do you feel like you have used food as a source of comfort?

NS: I cook and write about food for a living so in that sense, it is work but it also provides a way for me to distract myself, even momentarily from the external environment. It helps me focus. 

SQSP: As someone who got his start with a food blog, do you have any advice for aspiring writers who are looking to share their own stories? 

Be yourself, be the change you seek, take plenty of risks, seek failures more than successes, and write about the food you love and want to cook.  Your enthusiasm will shine through your work when you are excited. 

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