Edible Food Finds: Fork on a Road
Photos by Linda Campos
Local ingredients are Suman Shah’s passion—a passion that she was determined to focus on when developing Fork On A Road. After working in marketing for almost 20 years, Shah left work to take care of her parents in India and came back to the States with a yearning to try something new, something nurturing. She found that expression in the form of a meal-kit company. Despite having no formal training in the food industry, she relied on her strong connection with Indian cuisine, her love of fresh ingredients and the recipes she learned growing up to kick-start the company.
Based in her certified kitchen in Lynnfield, the business is simple: vegetarian meal kits that emphasize bright flavors and whatever vegetables are in season. Packed with handmade spice blends, fresh dry ingredients and a recipe card, each kit instructs customers to source any other necessary ingredients—like vegetables—straight from the farmers market. The kits Shah offers rotate every six to eight weeks, based on the growing cycle, to ensure that all vegetables and herbs can be utilized at their peak in each of her recipes.
Shah’s seasonal meal kits are in sync with what is at the market, but they also offer health rewards. “The whole idea is rooted in Ayurveda. I principally gravitate towards foods that balance our internal systems,” she says. Many recipes highlight ingredients that help warm or cool the body, helping it to achieve balance. Shah’s own homemade spice blends help control these sensations as well, with blends of turmeric, garam masala, chai masala, rose, cardamom and saffron, all offering different inner benefits.
Most of the recipes Shah incorporates into her meal kits are Indian or South Asian, as she believes her happiness lies in the flavors she grew up with, though she also gravitates towards flavors of the Middle East and Southwestern/Mexican cuisine. Some recipes were created on the fly, while others she learned from family, like her mother. For Shah, “those recipes are more about memory.” Memory is precisely why Fork On A Road’s tagline is “vegetarian voyages”: It represents the journey that takes place when you take a bite of anything. For Shah, Fork On A Road is about sharing a part of her own story and culture, inviting customers into her world to experience food in a new, delicious way.
Saffron Kheer, an indulgent and creamy Indian rice pudding, may not immediately appear easy enough for a novice to make, but Shah’s meal kit—complete with a recipe card, basmati rice, organic cane sugar and a special spice blend of saffron, cardamom and rose—simplifies everything. For a lot of home cooks, Indian food may seem intimidating and hard to understand, but Shah sees the meal kits—and the spice blends and recipes that come inside of them—as “an easy way to introduce flavors into cooking,” so anyone can dive into Indian cuisine.
Despite being in business for just a few years, Fork On A Road has captured the hearts of shoppers all over Massachusetts. At farmers markets, the positive reception to the kits hasn’t just been through sales. When describing her experience selling at the farmers market, Shah says, “It’s not just ‘buy my product,’ but also ‘go get your basil from the market’” and people seem to be loving that integration. Options to buy online and use Shah’s recipes are also very popular with new customers excited to try their hand at cooking flavorful and fragrant meals with a story and a purpose. Shah even offers cooking classes, now virtual, where people can learn how to make her favorite recipes—from a distance.
“When I cook with passion, it makes me even happier when people enjoy what I make,” Shah explains, referring to the positive feedback she has received since beginning Fork on a Road. Five Lentil Dal with Greens may seem like a simple dish in theory—but when local vegetables are added to a recipe created with passion and respect for every ingredient, these meal kits become so much more than dinner; they help remind us how special food can be and the memories it can create. And that seems to be all Suman Shah has ever asked for.
