Whose Samosa Is It Anyway? The Story of Where 'Indian' Food Really Came From by Sonal Ved is a fascinating culinary-history book exploring how Indian food evolved through trade, migration, empires, cultural exchange, and regional traditions. Rather than treating Indian cuisine as a single, fixed tradition, Ved traces how ingredients and dishes travelled across the Indian subcontinent and were transformed over centuries.

The book journeys from the Indus Valley and ancient India through the Mauryan and Mughal periods and the arrival of European traders, examining the origins and evolution of foods such as samosa, chutney, fruit punch, ladi pav, kebabs and Burmese khow suey. It covers culinary influences from the mountains of Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea.

The book is particularly useful for readers interested in Indian food history, culinary anthropology, cultural history and the origins of familiar Indian dishes. It ultimately demonstrates that what we call "Indian cuisine" is the result of centuries of interaction between different regions, communities and cultures.