Rampur in Uttar Pradesh, home of the famed Rampuri knife, was a Rohilla Pathan princely state in the colonial era. It became a crucible for the intermingling of Pathan, Mughal and Awadhi culinary traditions in the nineteenth century. What constitutes and distinguishes Rampur cuisine? At our Online Talk #DeghToDastarkhwan, cultural historian Dr Tarana Husain Khan, a self-confessed indifferent cook, uses cuisine as the lens for examining the socio-cultural paradigm of Rampur and takes us back on her journey into the history of Rampur cuisine, focussing on its distinctive features, its rise in the nineteenth century and its decline after Indian independence.

About the speaker

Dr Tarana Husain Khan is a writer 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 Al Jazeera, Eaten Magazine, Scroll.in and in the anthologies Desi Delicacies (Pan Macmillan, India) and Dastarkhwan: Food Writing from South Asia and Diaspora (Beacon Books, UK). She is the author of historical fiction, ‘The Begum and the Dastan’, which won the Kalinga Literary Award for fiction, was shortlisted for Women Writer’s Award by She The People, and longlisted for the AutHER Award. Her book on Rampur cuisine, Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur, has been published by Penguin Random House India.