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Journalism of Courage
“Do you even know Persian for the art of cooking,” the librarian asked the writer and cultural historian Tarana Hussain Khan, his disdain apparent in his tone, when she enquired about one of the best-kept secrets of the Raza Library in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. Named after the nawab of the erstwhile princely state, Raza Ali Khan Bahadur, the library houses a rare selection of manuscripts, including a treasure trove of handwritten cookbooks in Persian that date back to the 19th century. It took a bit of cajoling, roping in the director of the library, and an assertion of her lineage — her grandfather, Abdul Khan Jaffar, belonged to the family of the first Rohilla settlers of Rampur and worked as the state’s engineer until it merged with the Indian Union in 1949 — for Khan to access them.
“I hadn’t heard of most of the recipes mentioned in the manuscripts despite growing up in a family of foodies. I was supremely intrigued. When I asked old-timers about them, I realised that many of these dishes, their ingredients and cooking techniques, have all but disappeared,” says Khan, who currently has a research fellowship at the University of Sheffield, UK.
The food of Rampur has long struggled with obscurity, lurking in the shadows as Awadhi and Mughal cuisines occupied the catbird seats. Her relentless investigation of the city’s food culture, which relied heavily on gathering oral testimonies from the khansamas of the royal court, “ladies of the house”, friends, and of course, the recipes she’d come upon at the library, yielded a number of articles before culminating into a book titled Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (2022, Penguin Random House).
Thorough and scholarly research forms the bedrock of this food memoir, through which Khan invites readers to discover the secrets of ‘Rampuriyat’. Compelling characters and anecdotes paint pictures of mourners finding comfort in the humble pulao, taar roti dawats at weddings, iftaar tables graced by keema samosas, and the nearly forgotten gulatthi that symbolises the innocence and intensity of first love. Each chapter in the book illustrates the foodways of Rampur, the values, beliefs, and rituals that anchor its people, through a culinary delight. “With this book, I wanted to establish the socio-cultural context of these foods but I also wanted to highlight the cultural loss Rampur has borne,” says Khan.
The socio-cultural history of Rampur’s cuisine, in Khan’s hands, isn’t just a nostalgic retelling of an opulent, royal past. It cuts across strata to breathe new life into nearly-forgotten culinary traditions. The abolition of privy purses in 1971 left many nawabs cash-strapped, forcing khansamas and their progeny to turn to other means of livelihood. This, coupled with the gradual decay of the princely state and changes introduced to the agricultural landscape of the region led to the “whittling down of the menu”. “Khansamas realised that their children had no time to learn how to make 50 kinds of kebabs. Nor could we find certain rice varieties. I distinctly remember having khichdi made with tilak chandan rice as a child. Some of these are nowhere to be found today,” says Khan, who is also working on a project titled, ‘Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties of India’ to revive heirloom rice varieties such as tilak chandan and hans raj that were once indispensable to the Rampuri table.
Rampuri Gulatthi Gulzar
Ingredients:
2 litres milk
1 cup sugar (or as per taste)
100 gm basmati rice
75 gm ghee
11/4 cup khoya
2 black cardamoms
4 green cardamoms
1/2 tsp kewra water
50 gm almonds, soaked and diced
20 gm pistachios, soaked and diced
Method:
Wash and soak rice for one hour. Boil the rice in about 1 litre of water till it is absolutely soft. Mash the rice adding a little milk if required. It should be a thick paste. Mix the khoya in 2 cups of milk. Now, boil the milk and add the rice in small quantities. Keep stirring and boiling the custard till it thickens. Add the khoya milk mixture and keep boiling. It will develop a pinkish hue. Add sugar and kewra water. Keep boiling till the sugar is completely dissolved. Check for sweetness. Add more sugar if need be. Remove the pan from the fire. Prepare the tempering by heating ghee and adding cardamoms till they crackle. Pour the tempering into the gulatthi and mix well. When the custard cools a little, pour it into deep serving dishes or clay bowls to set.
Preparing the Gul
The saucepan in which the gulatthi was prepared will have the residue custard. Put the unwashed pan on a skillet over low fire. Close the lid and let it simmer.
Check after 5 minutes. The scrapings will become pinkish. Scrape off an edge from the bottom of the pan. It should be golden. Be careful not to burn the scrapings. Now use a flat spoon to scrape off large chunks. These bits are put on the gulatthi as garnish. Fashion them into little round florets. Garnish it with finely diced almonds and pistachios. Refrigerate before serving.
(Damini Ralleigh is a Delhi-based independent food writer)
