1Few dishes stay in one country for long, because recipes travel with people.
2When families move abroad, they pack their cooking habits along with their suitcases.
3In a new land, some ingredients are missing, so cooks must improvise.
4That is how many famous dishes were actually born far from their homeland.
5The croissant, for example, was inspired by an Austrian pastry brought to France.
6Japanese curry came from British sailors, who had tasted it in colonial India.
7Over time, each generation adjusts the spices to suit local tastes and markets.
8Soon the dish changes so much that its birthplace might not recognize it.
9Some people call this a loss, but others see it as creative evolution.
10A recipe is less like a monument and more like a traveling story.
11Every cook who repeats it adds a small chapter in their own language.
12Perhaps that is why food connects strangers faster than almost anything else.