Smoke braids itself into her hair,
The scent of earth
Mingling with millet and charred leaf.

She seasons the present with the memory of rivers,
Of ash, and wild herbs.

Forged in fire, cool under the glare of cameras.

EdexLive honours Madhusmita Soren, Devi of Clay.

Her hands speak a language that begins before memory,
Where recipes were not written, but sung into the air.

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In a country where culinary heritage often gets flattened into regional generalities, Madhusmita Soren stands apart as a chef, a storyteller, and a cultural bridge bringing the taste of Odisha’s forests to the nation’s tables.

A Top 22 finalist on MasterChef India Season 8, Soren entered the competition not just to cook, but to represent. Her ingredients carried ancestry: millet, smoked fish, wild greens, rice ground on stone.

Her plating carried memory, of recipes sung before they were written, perfected in tribal hearths where clay, smoke, and leaf still shape the meal.

Years before the television lights, she was already documenting the vanishing foodways of Santali and other tribal communities. Her work since has been about translation, bringing indigenous flavours into contemporary form without losing their pulse.

In her hands, the local becomes luminous; from roasted mahua flower chutneys and bamboo-shoot curries, to mandia laddus plated beside crisp millet chips. Her reach extends beyond craft as well. Through workshops, school programs, and state festivals, she has helped position tribal food not as novelty, but as knowledge — sustainable, nutritional, and rooted in ecological balance.

Each demonstration is a quiet correction to decades of cultural erasure, showing that traditional cooking is science, ritual, and history combined.

In 2025, The New Indian Express recognised her at the Devi Awards, naming her Cultural Ambassador for preserving Odisha’s culinary soul. The title fits, though even “ambassador” feels too small; she is part archivist, part innovator, and fully an artist whose medium happens to be edible.

Her kitchens, whether in Koraput’s villages or in the glare of studio lights, are not so different. Both are stages where identity is plated with pride. Through her, forgotten grains find their way back to the centre of the table, and Odisha’s oldest voices speak again, this time through the language of taste.