I have a blind spot, as everyone who knows me will readily attest: I love the homeland of my husband: Kashmir and am completely unable to separate the strands of what is Muslim and what is Pandit. To me, they are interwoven with the silken fibres of a cobweb. You have to view the cobweb…
Flip through Facebook, and you’ll see that the rules of the boasting game appear to have altered slightly. Instead of your friends crowing about the Sacher Torte they enjoyed in Vienna, now it is about a Sambalpuri Thali from Orissa or an incendiary meal from Rayalseema. 2016 must go down in history as the year…
The one common refrain – should that be the only common refrain – of the politicians of Ladakh and Jammu provinces of J&K is to shout themselves hoarse that the region of Kashmir is receiving the giant’s share of — Here follows a litany of complaints about how little tourist infrastructure reaches Ladakh and Jammu,…
Ethnicity and modernity go together very well. On my first trip to Hong Kong five years ago – which was also my first trip to South East Asia – I was wonderstruck by the forest of looming skyscrapers that were lit up with Chinese characters. The road with the most western name – Des Voeux…
Lakakhis are fond of comparing their cuisine with that of Tibet and they have a point. A huge range of soups, whose names change whether they have been made with barley and stock, plain stock, fortified with hand-made pasta or mince-filled dumplings; hardly any greens and just a few types of breads – it is…
It’s reasonable to expect that expat chefs are essential if the quality of five-star cuisine is to remain international When chef Gabriele Montevechhio of Hyatt Regency’s La Piazza is called out of the kitchen by guests, he generally knows what is ,in store for him. “I get so many puzzled enquiries from guests wanting to…
Is there a conspiracy against everyday Kashmiri cooking? It would certainly seem so — all that is known about Kashmiri food in general outside the state is a handful of dishes that are prepared for banquets, ristas and gushtabas among them. All Kashmiris, be they Muslim or Pandit, love their meat, and mutton appears daily…
What does a meeting of political bigwigs, an office picnic and an Eid celebration have in common? If all three are held in Kashmir, the answer is wazwan, the traditional banquet. In conservative societies such as Kashmir’s, all occupations are hereditary. Carpenters’ sons pick up the hammer and saw, barbers’ sons will wield the scissors…
There is a wedding in the family, and all day long the courtyard is the scene of activity. A party of professional male cooks spread themselves out under a colourful canopy. The head cook cuts up a whole sheep with a set of wicked looking knives. Nearby, a log fire is being lighted, and an…
Growing up in Hyderabad in the ’seventies, Begum Kulsum would always look forward to weddings. That was when the making of the mo’alla kebab took place. “It was around five feet in diametre and took several kebabchis to prepare. Filled with biryani, the trick was to work dexterously with the sheer quantity of ingredients, specially…