Would you believe there’s more in my pile than a dozen DC series that I haven’t gotten around to? My procrastination knows no bounds or publisher size. But, at the very least, this is a series that isn’t coming from 2021 or something I’ve yet to touch on at all. In fact, I did write about the first issue of it last year and have finally read through its six issue run. That series is, of course, Rare Flavours by Ram V and Filipe Andrade as they steep us into a story that goes beyond what I thought we would see in its first issue.

From its initial issue, Rare Flavours sets up the documentary that Rubin is looking to make about the food in his life—both the dishes themselves as well as the people who create them. Mohan, the man he messaged to help him create this film, has his reservations. Mohan knows next to nothing about Rubin, but still follows him on this journey through India and the dishes they encounter regardless. He’s aimless, and Rubin is providing something more in his life than laying in bed after the death of his mother. Through this series, we see them travel to disparate locations—small spice markets tucked away behind side-streets, mathania chili fields in the desert, the beaches of Mumbai—and uncover the foods hidden within. But then there’s also the issue of the demon hunters on their trail.

This, though, is a story about stories. And throughout the story we see different sides of Rubin and what people say about him—from the terror depicted in art to the scholar and poet whose stomach was seemingly bottomless to the man-eater who must be put down to the friend that helped a man discover what he was meant to do with food and art in his life. Much like with many of the recipes included throughout these six issues, there are embellishments and different degrees of content added depending on who is doing the telling. There is never one way to make raan just as there’s no one way to tell the story of Rubin or Mohan. What we can trust about these people or the food they’re documenting is simply by judging what is in front of us at the moment, be it enjoying the history of a daal fry or Rubin sharpening his knives over a tied-up vendor.

Rare Flavours knows that food and stories overlap—every time we cook, we’re telling the story of the recipe—but the way in which V and Andrade approach this idea means it can only exist as a comic. The interspersed recipes that help to drive the narrative show us how to make food, but also how to read the history of the people who make it. Food has never existed in a vacuum, there has always been someone there to create what is on the plate as well as someone there to enjoy it. In Rubin’s case, he’s been there to see the recipes develop over millennia, and enjoy the people doing the cooking. 

Get excited. Get hungry.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, & 510) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.