Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Spice Road’ on PBS, An Indian Food-Centered Riff On ‘Taste the Nation’

Stories about immigrants and their cultures have permeated TV lately, and food is often pointed to as the most seminal and accessible way of sharing culture. Padma Lakshmi launched a food documentary series, Taste The Nation, dedicated to learning about American subcultures through the lens of food, and now Rupak Ginn is taking the idea a step further by centering a series on the vast offerings from the Indian subcontinent alone, which is now available to stream on PBS.

SPICE ROAD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Set to classical Indian rhythms, a montage of various South Asian foods — some well known and some not — appears before host Rupak Ginn introduces himself and the series at hand.

The Gist: Indian-American actor Rupak Ginn dives into the heritage of his mother country by exploring the food from different South Asian regions in restaurants in small towns across the United States. In four short 15-minute episodes, Ginn also taps into his wife Nancy Redd’s Southern Black culture to understand how the two cultures are in conversation with each other.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? It’s obvious that Spice Road takes a lot of cues from Padma Lakshmi’s Taste the Nation, which aims to celebrate different immigrant communities by spotlighting their food customs. Spice Road moves that spotlight to South Asian food, which vastly varies by region and comes with their own set of varying traditions.

Our Take: If you like Indian food and you’re from the western part of the world, it’s likely that you are enjoying a specific type of Indian food — mostly from the Northern region of India. But the truth is that each part of India, the rest of the Indian subcontinent (which includes Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives), and the rest of the countries that make up “South Asia” all have vastly different cuisines and cultures. (Fun fact: India has 28 states and 8 Union territories, each with a unique cultural identity and food traditions. Further, South Asia is an umbrella term for 11 diverse countries.) Rupak Ginn’s Spice Road is a quest to shine a light on all of the different regions and learn a little bit more about the subcontinent and his culture along the way.

Season 1 of the PBS digital series only has four episodes, but Ginn does make it a point to highlight areas that are often overlooked — even though he begins the series in a very approachable place with Punjabi food and names like “dal” and “paratha” that might be more familiar to the uninitiated. His approach is one of both familiarity and an openness to learning, and it’s imbued from the beginning with a personal story that makes audiences automatically feel more invested.

India and its surrounding countries cover a large amount of ground and it’s impossible for Spice Road to cover all of it, but I was hopeful for more South Indian representation on the series. The series is at its best when it’s highlighting food that isn’t as familiar — even to Indians — like the episode that centered on Maharashtrian food in New Jersey.

Ginn and his celebrity friends offer an approachable slice of the Indian-American experience, even if their conversations aren’t exactly breaking new ground. Many of the discussions speak to feeling othered and assimilating, and rejecting our culture as a kid growing up with one foot in each identity — things that have been talked about at length before. But still, when centered on food specifically, they add a touch of personalization to the experience as they reminisce about not wanting to invite friends over because of the way the house smelled and veering away from stories we’ve heard a million times (like being ashamed of bringing “smelly” food to lunch).

Each episode is approximately 15-20 minutes, making the series even more welcoming. Ginn is an affable and curious host and his subjects are keen to share their slice of the Spice Road with fans, making the series educational, fun and mouth-watering all at the same time.

Sex and Skin: This isn’t that kind of show.

Parting Shot: Ginn reflects on the duality of the Indian-American identity by showing photos of his adolescence opposite those of his mixed-race children, before hopping into his Jeep to set out on the next adventure.

Sleeper Star: The couple who runs the Punjabi Dhaba in Bakersfield, California, which is the subject of the first episode, are a no frills business team that tell their story matter-of-factly and patiently.

Most Pilot-y Line:: “Somewhere along the way, like many brown kids in my generation, I learned that ‘different’ means ‘bad,’” Ginn reflects in his introduction on his childhood growing up as the son of Indian immigrants, which eventually set him on this journey of discovery that has become Spice Road.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The episodes are perfectly sized and pack a lot of education into each bite.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.