India, April 14 -- Amid the West Bengal election chatter, one thing that has emerged as the biggest talking point is non-veg - with chief minister Mamata Banerjee claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party will make access to non-vegetarian food difficult for Bengalis if voted to power. The BJP, on the other hand, has been going all out to deem these claims baseless, so much so that one of its candidates was recently seen campaigning with a fish.

Against this backdrop, conversations across some of the city's most popular eating hubs - from biryani outlets and kathi roll joints to iconic cabins - have increasingly shifted towards an unusual political question: food.

For many in Bengal, food is inseparable from identity. Maach and maangsho ...