Mayuri Bhakat Sudipta Kumar Paul
1Independent Research Scholar. 2T.G.T English, J.N.V. Barpeta, Assam
[Article History: Received: 06 Feb 2024. Revised: 10 Feb 2024. Accepted: 18 Feb 2024. Published: 23 Feb 2024]
Abstract
What we eat determines who we are; it draws an invisible boundary line between ‘us’ and ‘them’ as well as unites ‘us’ with ‘them’. Our cuisine and platters represent us even when Globalization claims to have erased the boundary between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Traditionally, food is believed to be one of the intangible cultural capitals to trace the footprints of human life and community. In the quest to unearth the lost recipes of different communities and tribes in India, Chef Aditya Bal has travelled across the country and explored various lost flavours. All the episodes of “Lost Recipes” streaming on EPIC channel have been unearthing various lost recipes of our country and providing them wider viewers. Interestingly, this show has introduced some folk food habits along with royal recipes and recipes among a wider range of audience. ‘Seeda Roti’ from Garhwal, ‘Suski’ from Chattishgarh, ‘Fish Alberas’ by Bene Israelis, and Konkan’s ‘Katri’ – all these lost folk recipes lead us down memory lane through their rich aroma and taste. Excavating and documenting the history of folk life and their distinct platters, which are gradually being lost, this programme is helping the extinct cultural identities to revive.
Walter Benjamin’s idea of democratization of the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction will be referred to re-read Aditya Bal’s ‘Lost Recipies’. How can folk culture be mediated to a universal audience while the aura remains unaffected? Does folk culture have an aura? Does democratization help folk culture in challenging the idea of ‘aura’? – these questions will be critically addressed in this paper within a limited circle of folk, food, and lost history of India.
Keywords: Folk, Food, History, Aditya Bal, Lost Recipes, India.