In a freewheeling conversation with her daughter Priyanka Gandhi amid the release of her book, Belonging: A Journey Of Love, Sonia Gandhi spoke about her love for Indian food. “Food has always had a special
place in my story. It was while looking for a good meal that I met Rajiv, and fell in love. Years later, India came to me the same way, one meal at a time. At first the variety amazed me and the spice scared me. Now dal chawal is the taste of home, and I can’t go a day without it,” she wrote in the caption accompanying the video. Sonia Gandhi, who is of Italian descent, admitted that her early relationship with Indian food was far from pleasant. She initially avoided the heavy smell of spices entirely. However, during her courtship with Rajiv Gandhi in London, a dinner with family friends marked a major turning point. Speaking about Indian food, Sonia Gandhi said, “I love Indian food. Bengali food I love. Believe it or not, I love Gujarati food from Surat. It took me time to get used to Indian food. You know, it was difficult for me to enjoy Indian food right at the beginning. I didn’t know how to cook when I came, but later, slowly, I learned.”
When asked what’s her favourite now, she said, “I love kebabs, chicken tikka, tandoori chicken, dal makhni and the Kashmiri kofta and the haakh. Haakh is that Kashmiri thing…And dal chawal meal that’s my favourite…So in our house, from the day I came till today, the only dal cooked is arhar ki dal. No other dal.”
When Priyanka reminded her about how she used to make khandvi, she said, “I used to make. It is very easy.”
The unfamiliar becomes familiar. The familiar becomes loved. Love grows into responsibility. And that is belonging.
Moving between love and loss, family and power, private life and public duty, Belonging is @SoniaGandhi’s account of an extraordinary life—and of a changing India.
Belonging releases on 10 November 2026.
— HarperCollins (@HarperCollinsIN) November 6, 2026
Priyanka spoke about how her grandmother (Dadi), Indira Gandhi, couldn’t cook. “She couldn’t cook but she had a very acute, devekoped sense…She would say, this is good, but if you add this, it would become better…She knew exactly how to improve something,” said Sonia Gandhi.
In her deeply personal memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love, former Congress President Sonia Gandhi reflects candidly on her integration into Indian culture, highlighted by her transition from avoiding Indian cuisine to deeply loving it.
Her journey with food mirrors her broader assimilation into her adopted home, beautifully summarised by her publisher, HarperCollins India: “The unfamiliar becomes familiar. The familiar becomes loved. Love grows into responsibility. And that is belonging.”
