DESI DELICACIES

DESI DELICACIES CLAIRE CHAMBERS

A delectable anthology of food writing exploring the histories and cultures of Muslim South Asia. Contributors include Nadeem Aslam, Rana Safvi, Tabish Khair, Annie Zaidi, Sarvat Hasin, Tarana Husain Khan, Bina Shah, Sadaf Husain, Rosie Dastgir, and others. The kitchen is often the heart of South Asian homes. Muslim South Asian kitchens, in particular, are the engines of an entire culture. The alchemy that takes place within them affects nations and economies, politics and history, and of course human relationships. There is proof of it in Desi Delicacies, Claire Chambers’ anthology of essays, stories and recipes supplied by some of the region’s most well-loved writers, historians and chefs. An unexpected revelation awaits Nadeem Aslam in a London restaurant as he yearns for a special delicacy from Pakistan. Rana Safvi recounts the history of Awadhi cooking and the origins of qorma, while Sadaf Hussain tells us how the samosa came to be paired with chai and of his own lately found love for the latter. Tabish Khair examines our attitudes towards food that is ‘jootha’. Death comes with an aftertaste of taar roti for the protagonist of Tarana Husain Khan’s story set in Rampur. Gulla puts his heart into making the perfect nardoo yakhni but is taken aback by a hairy surprise in Asiya Zahoor’s ‘The Hairy Curry’. A multitude of flavours blend with love, joy, grief, regret and nostalgia in this book which is not only a beautiful collection of food writing, but also a rich helping of the histories and cultures of Muslim South Asia. The cover image is a painting from the Nimatnama, a collection of recipes partly compiled during the reign of Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din of the Delhi Sultanate.

CLAIRE CHAMBERS

Claire Chambers is Professor of Global Literature at the University of York, where she teaches literature from South Asia, the Arab world, and their diasporas. She is the author of British Muslim Fictions (2011), Britain Through Muslim Eyes (2015), and Making Sense of Contemporary British Muslim Novels (2019). She has also published a collection of her essays entitled Rivers of Ink (2017). Finally, she co-edited (with Caroline Herbert) Imagining Muslims in South Asia and the Diaspora (2015) and (with Nafhesa Ali and Richard Phillips) A Match Made in Heaven: British Muslim Women Write About Love and Desire (2020). Claire is Editor-in-Chief (with Rachael Gilmour) of the Journal of Commonwealth Literature and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.