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This Week in AsiaLifestyle & Culture

The Indian chef trying to be the face of ‘Kolkata’s Muslim Food’, by reviving Awadhi’s heritage cuisine

  • Manzilat Fatima is trying to create awareness about popular Muslim food from Uttar Pradesh that is now a part of the culinary heritage of Kolkata
  • The chef’s advocacy comes amid increasing Hindu nationalist propaganda that paints Muslims as demonic carnivores whose meat appetite is insatiable

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Manzilat Fatima, chef and Awadh heritage food expert. Photo: Manzilat Fatima
Nilosree Biswas

The aroma of heritage Awadhi dishes like galawti kebab and yakhni pulao fills the evening air at an open terrace of a four-storey building in east Kolkata. Within this industrial complex a food quest is taking place. It is being led by Manzilat Fatima, who sees herself as the face of “Kolkata’s Muslim Food”.

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The Indian lawyer-turned-chef, who descends from the royal Awadh family, had a hectic day at her tastefully self-named Manzilat’s terrace restaurant and diner service, and quickly finds time for a short break before patrons’ arrive for the dinner rush.

She had always enjoyed cooking but as a hobby, the former practising lawyer at Kolkata’s High Court said. “Once my children flew out of the nest, cooking transformed into a serious engagement, and reviving Muslim culinary heritage of Awadh became a mission.”

Chef Manzilat Fatima making kebabs at her Diner Kitchen. Photo: Manzilat Fatima
Chef Manzilat Fatima making kebabs at her Diner Kitchen. Photo: Manzilat Fatima
Ironically, present-day Uttar Pradesh – erstwhile Awadh – is a seat of robust right-wing nationalism at the forefront of erasing Muslim history, supportive of general anti-Muslim measures including meat bans. In this circumstance, Manzilat’s mission attains more contextually than just reviving heritage food.

“My food journey reviving authentic cuisine of Awadh, creating awareness about popular Muslim food from Uttar Pradesh that is now a part of culinary heritage of Kolkata brought in by the last king, Wajid Ali Shah. I took the onus on myself to share the gastronomy that came with him and its history,” she said.

When the British deposed Wajid Ali Shah, detaining him at Kolkata’s Fort William to later release him, the king had an entourage of 70 people that included his finest chefs, butlers, and cooks hand-picked from as far as Iran. As history reaffirms, he approved the use of a chunky potato in biriani, wildly popular even today.
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For Manzilat, the duty of “sharing history” comes from her great-great-grandmother, Begum Hazrat Mahal, whom she described as a symbol of women’s empowerment. “Her role as a Muslim woman of her stature, Begum of Awadh in the first war of independence in 1857, holding the fort in her husband’s (Wajid Ali Shah’s) absence, fighting the mighty colonial power was no small feat,” she said.

“I have inherited this resoluteness as a legacy and am determined to see my mission enabled,” she said as she rushed back to the kitchen to check the spice mixture of a Shahi Biriani.

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