I called my recipe book Sabzi – vegetables. But the name was trademarked. And my legal ordeal began

The granting of patents and trademarks to foods and words from the global south is part of a long colonial grab. It’s time to realise we share what we cook, and what we call itVegetables, in my experience, rarely cause controversy. Yet last month I found myself in the middle of a legal storm over who gets to own the word sabzi – the Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Persian, Dari and Pashto word for cooked veg or fresh greens. It was a story as absurd as it was stressful, a chain of delis threat