Along with stopping for groceries, ice cream, camp firewood and night crawlers, customers at Baker’s General Store in Post Mills can now order up dishes like malai kofta and palak paneer.

After Ankit Patel reopened the shuttered general store off Route 113 last year, he added Indian food to the store’s daily takeout menu.

“People are loving it,” said Paul Patel, a Baker’s employee who is related to the store owner. “It’s something different and new.”

Ankit Patel, who lives in Bow, N.H., also owns the Plainfield Country Store, where Indian food is available on Thursdays. Popular items on the menu, which varies week to week, include chicken tikka masala and chicken curry with jeera rice.

Sonal Patel, who is from Gujarat, a state along India’s western coast, started cooking for the convenience store in 2022, shortly after the Patel family bought the business. She’s tinkered with recipes from her homeland a bit, toning down the spiciness of dishes to put her creations more in line with local taste buds.

Apparently, it’s paid off. The Plainfield store in a relatively short time has developed a loyal following.

“We think it’s some of the best Indian food we have had, certainly in the Upper Valley,” said Paula Wehde, of Plainfield. “I make my own Indian food at home, but I could not even come close to what their food is like.”

Wehde appreciates being able to try dishes that she hasn’t come across before in the Upper Valley.

“The local area doesn’t have many choices of ethnic offerings, outside of Thai food,” she said.

New Indian food eateries are cropping up throughout the Upper Valley, adding fresh flavors to the region’s gastronomic options. In addition to general stores, Indian food now can be found at area farmers’ markets.

It’s part of a national dietary trend. Francis Lam, host of “The Splendid Table” podcast, told his listeners last year that we have entered a new “golden age of Indian food culture in America.”

In Vermont and New Hampshire, demographics are playing a role in the emergence of more dining options for fans of Indian food.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data, Canada is the only country that has more people moving to New Hampshire than India. In 2022, New Hampshire had 7,491 residents of Indian origin, the federal agency reported.

The U.S. is “one of the countries where Indian food’s popularity has risen nonstop,” New India Abroad, a New York-based online publication wrote last July.

Indian food is among the “most authentic on the planet,” the website wrote. “Its vibrant flavors and creative use of spices have increased its popularity.”

Indian chef Manjit Singh sells his dishes at farmers’ markets in Hartland, West Hartford and Woodstock. He’s also opened a catering business called Shere Punjab this year.

Singh, 66, and his family has lived in White River Junction since 2010. “My mom’s sister lived in California, New York, and ended up here and really liked it,” said Singh’s daughter Parminder Kaur, 23. “It was an easy place to come (from northern India) to be close to family.

Kaur’s grandparents were farmers in northern India and the family is deeply connected to the food they serve.

“Growing, harvesting, cooking — the food has been a really important part of our lives,” said Kaur, who is helping out with the family business this summer. “All our dishes are inspired by my grandparents and ancestors — all of the recipes have been passed down.”

“The food we serve at the markets is what we would make for ourselves at home.”

At farmers’ markets this summer, customers are encouraging the family to move into a storefront location, she said. Woodstock is a town that’s frequently mentioned.

“We’re looking into it,” Kaur said. “We’re open to the idea.”

The Upper Valley’s most established Indian restaurant is in downtown Hanover. Surjit Kaur and her husband, Balbir Singh, opened Jewel of India in 1992.

Before coming to Hanover, the couple had a restaurant in Concord. “For some reason, it didn’t work,” Kaur said. “Business wasn’t good.”

Some of the regular customers they had, however, came from 60 miles away in Hanover. They encouraged the couple to change venues, selling the idea that an Indian restaurant would be well received in a college town.

Kaur and Singh rented a building on Lebanon Street, within walking distance of the Dartmouth College campus. Four years ago, when the property was sold, the restaurant’s future was in doubt.

But Kaur and Singh secured a new location on Lebanon Street that also offered outdoor dining space. Jewel of India’s dishes range from lamb kebabs to vegetable curries.

Maintaining that an “Indian meal, without bread, is not complete,” Jewel of India’s kitchen features a tandoor, a pit oven made from clay that uses charcoal.

Kaur, 60, and Singh, 70, have been in business for 32 years — a longevity mark that only a couple of other Hanover restaurants can top.

Running a restaurant is a “very hard job with long hours, but business is still good,” Kaur said.

In White River Junction, Taj-E-India, which is off Sykes Mountain Avenue, is another Indian food mainstay that has developed a niche. Lacking space for sit-down dining, it’s take-out only. The family-owned business also has a catering side.

Meanwhile, another Indian family is preparing to soon open a sit-down restaurant in the Upper Valley.

Rajvir Singh, 21, and his parents, Kulwinder Kaur and Manjit Singh are putting the finishing touches on a new eatery in the former China Station restaurant on Miracle Mile in Lebanon. (Singh and Manjit Singh, of Shere Punjab, are related by marriage. Their spouses are sisters.)

Rajvir Singh’s family currently operates the Taste of Punjab food truck in downtown Lebanon. After working out of a royal blue food trucked parked on the south side of Colburn Park since May 2023, the family is bringing its Indian cuisine indoors.

“It was mostly my dad’s dream,” Rajvir Singh said. “He always wanted to start something business-wise, but we didn’t have enough funds for a full-on restaurant. The Upper Valley has shown us a lot of love.”

The restaurant, which is expected to go by the name of Turmeric Kitchen, will offer both northern and southern India cuisine.

Northern Indian dishes often include chicken and lamb, while southern Indian cuisine features more seafood. Northern Indian meals tend to come with wheat-based breads, while southern Indian food uses more rice and lentils.

Some of the items on the soon-to-open restaurant’s menu include matar paneer, a dish of homemade cheese with a rich sauce, vegetables, and rice, or samosas, butter chicken and chickpea masala.

Singh has relished serving food that, for some, is a taste of home, while for others is a new excursion.

At their food truck, “we’ve gotten a lot of (Indian customers),” he said. Many customers are familiar with Indian food, but there are still “people who have never tried it, then they try it (here), and that’s amazing,” he added.

“We try to keep our food as traditional as possible.”

Kate Oden is a freelance writer. She can be reached at odenk06@gmail.com.