If you are a history buff with a penchant for cooking, Aali Kumar's micro-blog and food pop-up 'Zaikanama' is bound to intrigue you. Through this initiative, she offers authentic culinary experiences and details the history and cultural influences of different Indian communities and regions.
An avid lover of both food and the history behind culinary practices, Aali - she is an assistant professor of History at a Delhi University college - initially used social media to document the origins of dishes she prepared at home.
However, she was keen on sharing her knowledge with others who were unaware of "What we eat and why we eat it". It was on a whim, sometime after the first lockdown in 2020, when the Safdarjung Enclave resident organised her debut food history event at Sunder Nursery.
"It was a time when people were avoiding closed spaces. I thought I would organise a picnic where I would offer a certain menu and talk about its history," shares the 30 year old.
Exploring gastronomic tales
In her first mid-lockdown event titled 'Vignettes of British Raj: Sahib's Picnic', Aali narrated the history of the British-Indian subcontinent and the cuisines that developed out of it. The response she received, Aali mentions, was overwhelming. She recounts, "If that event hadn’t had such a great turn out, 'Zaikanama' would not have existed today."
Ever since her first event, Aali has organised similar pop-ups where she curates Indian cuisines - these include Anglo Indian, Parsi, and Bengali - under the banner of 'Zaikanama'. Although a brainchild of Aali, who also curates the events, 'Zaikanama' is a collaborative initiative with Ayushi Kumar - Aali's sister who is in charge of cooking - and their mother Meena Kumar, who helps organise the event.
Elaborating on the thought that 'Zaikanama' explores the intersection of food and history, Aali shares, "Through this initiative, I get people who are not from the discipline to engage with history. History doesn’t need to be just dates and things that happened a long time back. We are constantly grappling with history on a daily basis with food."
Chewing over culinary past
To curate these menus, Aali conducts thorough research by identifying resources ranging from vintage cookbooks to heirloom recipes collected from family and friends. "Cookbooks can truly capture the essence of a cuisine. I feel, with the introduction of cookbooks in the 19th Century, they have played a major role in tracing historical narratives," she mentions.
Every event curated by 'Zaikanama' focuses on a specific theme which Aali uses to explore the culinary traditions of various Indian communities as well as lesser-known stories of popular cuisines. Interested in the confluence of cultures, she mentions how food is a product of cultural and historical influences, and with time, it becomes almost like an identity of a community or region.
Talking about the Parsi cuisine in the same context, she mentions that this cuisine, which has predominantly been influenced by the culinary practices of Gujarat and Maharashtra - places where the community had settled after migrating from Iran. "Although there are certain continuities, the overall Parsi cuisine - while originally from Iran - has an identity of its own."
Another vertical of 'Zaikanama' is 'Zaika Chronicles', through which Aali conducts one-on-one interviews with food experts and citizens from various regions, discussing family recipes and culinary practices. To a great degree, Aali strives to trace the formation of what forms "Indian Cuisine" today. She concludes, "I like to help people think of food as a constantly evolving entity."