Reading General Amar Singh’s diaries from 1905 in the museum named after him, Mita Kapur came across detailed descriptions and cultural analyses of the different food served to the British, Rajputs, and Muslims in the military on a daily basis as well as that served at occasions such as the general’s own wedding. In an essay for The Indian Quarterly, Kapur laments that little effort has been made to archive and publish culinary manuscripts such as these – “How I wished there were published translations of them. What might we not learn of those times?”
Kapur sees in the general’s simple, but careful journal entries on the meals people consumed in his time opportunities for the historian (and the lay reader) to learn more about societal and cultural realities of a certain time. Kapur’s ruminations helped me identify a defining characteristic of the food writing I am personally drawn to – writing that recognises that the human reliance on and craving for food plays out in ways that are dependent on geography, socio-economic realities, and historical circumstances. Out of the numerous examples of insightful writing about food in the subcontinent that explore subjects like the culinary habits and history of sub-cultures, food security, the allure of local spices and ingredients for colonial powers, and more, I have curated a short list that captures some of the finest and most diverse perspectives in the field.
Each writer in the list approaches food differently with some combination of nostalgia, curiosity, reflection, and reverence, and each lends the field something of historical and cultural significance by mapping small fractions of a vast and complicated heritage.
Marryam H. Reshii
Thirty years into her career as a beloved food critic and writer, Reshii compiled decades of accumulated findings about an essential ingredient in global cuisine whose roots lead back to the subcontinent: spices. In The Flavour Of Spice, Reshii traces the history of both widely-used and little-known spices from their origins to their contemporary uses. She travels to spice plantations and markets around the subcontinent, studying means of harvesting, ancient routes, the trade in contemporary times, closely guarded recipes, the correct combinations of spices for a cook to experiment with, and more. The Flavour is ultimately so engrossing because Reshii has spent years collecting these stories that made me respect the remarkable journey these spices make from farms to kitchens.
Esther David
David’s Book of Rachel is inspired by real-life elderly Jewish women in India and Pakistan, sometimes the last surviving member in the region, who would task themselves with preserving the remnants of the Bene-Israeli structures and culture around them even as they aged. Her protagonist, Rachel, is one of the last Jewish inhabitants in her town by the sea, and the caretaker of the local synagogue. Her rituals of cleansing and maintaining the space, and painstakingly preparing the food of her people each week offer a glimpse into the lives of a community on the brink of disappearing. When a proposed development threatens to take over the synagogue’s land, Rachel fights for its preservation. Book Of Rachel uses the recipes of traditional Bene-Israeli dishes to remember the rich and troubled history of the community. I enjoyed it because it is a rare glimpse into a culinary heritage that most people in the subcontinent wouldn’t otherwise know of.
Madhur Jaffrey
Jaffrey grew up within a comfortable, large family in Delhi who gathered for communal meals each day. When she migrated to the United Kingdom as a young adult, she hadn’t yet learned to cook, but she would draw on her experiences of food and drink as a child at every step of her long, illustrious career as a food writer, host of food and travel shows on television, and a consultant to restaurants. Of all the writers on my list, Jaffrey is the one who casts her net widest – writing about each aspect of culinary culture she encounters from the smell of Hyderabadi breakfasts she compares to the smell of bacon and eggs in the West to the
the sweet, milky tea she drank as a child on railway platforms served to families like hers by the domestic help travelling with them to the continental food offered on the houseboats of Kashmir (a lasting impact of the preferences of the boats’ colonial era British inhabitants). Jaffrey has written several books, though my personal favourites remain her childhood memoir, Climbing The Mango Trees, and A Taste of India, which tours the cuisine of fourteen of India’s states.
Lathika George
In Mother Earth, Sister Seed, George has gathered the stories of India’s farming communities (both coastal and inland) from around the country. The crops covered are as varied as coffee, seasonal herbs, fish, honey, grains, and vegetables. She shows the lives of people who grow the food we consume in cities, who rely on their temperamental produce to eke out a living despite unreliable climate and unstable market rates. More than any other writer on this list, she tells the stories of these regions without incorporating their voices into her own as she recounts the risks increasingly desperate honey-gatherers in the Sundarbans take by venturing into tiger territory, the harvest festivities in different regions that help mark milestones within a life of hard-work, terrace farming in cities, and more. George’s book is unlike any other book I’ve read on the subject.
More on these writers and food!