A hearty new anthology from the makers of Desi Delicacies celebrating the lesser-known cuisines of Muslim South Asia.
While heritage foods still abound in the streets and kitchens of South Asia, it may just be a matter of time before many of these historic dishes and culinary traditions, especially of Muslim provenance, pass into oblivion. In Forgotten Foods, historians, literary scholars, plant scientists, heritage practitioners, writers and chefs come together to document precious stories and memories, histories and recipes in a valiant endeavour to stem this lamentable tide.
Introducing us to the legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s modest, homely tastes, his daughter Moneeza Hashmi draws our attention to dishes that continue to cut across the seemingly impermeable India–Pakistan border. In Sri Lanka, Rizvina Morseth de Alwis finds comfort in the ‘strange’ recipes of her country’s Malay cuisine. A lost kitchen cabinet in Bhopal holds the secret behind the tenderest shami kababs. A journey through the rich foodscape of Manipur’s Pangal community depicts its close ties to the dietary traditions of marginalised groups. Tarana Husain Khan visits Rampur’s paddy fields on a quest for heritage rice varieties, even as we experience the sweeter side of Hyderabad’s cuisine generally notorious for its heat. A cornucopia of other essays familiarise us with uncommon items such as Kerala’s jeeraga kanhi, Kashmir’s saada saag and the delicate murgh qorma of Awadh.
The culinary diversity showcased in Forgotten Foods not only comes as a delightful surprise, it also proves just how profoundly Muslim kitchens have reshaped alimentary practices, enriching South Asian food and making it what it is today.
Tarana Husain Khan is a novelist and cultural historian. Her writings on the oral history, culture and the famed cuisine of the erstwhile princely state of Rampur have appeared in prominent publications such as Scroll.in, Eaten magazine, Wire and in the anthology Desi Delicacies (Pan Macmillan, India)/Dastarkhwan: Food Writing from South Asia and Diaspora ( Beacon Books, UK). She hosts and curates a website on Rampur culture and oral history and is the author of the historical novel The Begum and the Dastan. She lives between Rampur and Nainital with her husband.
Claire Chambers is Professor of Global Literature at the University of York, where she researches and teaches writing from South Asia and the Perso-Arab world. She is a well-known writer and literary critic. Her research focuses on modern literature from South Asia and diaspora, and on writing by authors of Muslim heritage. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature for more than a decade. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and writes a regular literary column for Dawn (Pakistan).
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Professor of Global History at the University of Sheffield. She leads the project ‘Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India’ funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK. Her most recent book is Elusive Lives: Gender, Autobiography and the Self in Muslim South Asia (2018).
