Taste often drives memory; be it a fragrant chutney that reminds one of the mundane, or a spicy kebab that invokes celebration.
This year, at The Hindu Lit Fest 2024, a panel titled A Taste of Memory: A Celebration of Food and Family, will bring writers and custodians of culinary traditions Tarana Husain Khan and Rakesh Raghunathan in conversation with Deepa S Reddy.
“Both Tarana Khan and Rakesh Raghunathan are interested in plunging a hand back into history and pulling out forgotten memories and recipes,” says Deepa, author and cultural anthropologist, who will moderate the panel. “We tend to think that a recipe is just something that leads to a finished dish. But there is so much that is accrued with a recipe: personal meaning, social meaning, family associations — good, bad, sad and everything in between,” says Deepa. Both the panellists are making different types of effort towards tracing the varied aspects surrounding culinary memory.
