People’s Archive of Food Memories

This short film was prepared by students from Janki Devi Memorial College (JDMC), University of Delhi, who participated in a programme to create a ‘People’s Archive of Food Memories’ amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Interviews were taken by student ethnographers, as they were styled, with close family and friends, including grandparents, mothers and aunties, most of whom had migrated to Delhi from other parts of India over the last fifty years. Accordingly, the interviews captured individual perspectives on an impressive array of local and regional food cultures: from Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, western and eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, Bengal, Mizoram, Manipur, Karnataka, Kerala and, of course, Delhi itself. 

In the film, the student ethnographers trace from their own perspective the thinking behind the project, some of the main themes from the interviews, and the impact of participating on interviewer and interviewee alike. Revealed is an attention to cooking and eating, not just as subsistence, but as sensuality, pleasure, caring and belonging.

The film was prepared by the following student ethnographers: Jagriti Kumar, Khushboo Rashid, Gayathri S. Nair, Ayesha Qureshi, Rupali, Bushra Saifi, Neha Upreti, Nikita Sharma, Mary, Rohit Nirwal and Anchit Jain. It was done so with support from Professor Saumya Gupta. It was first shown at the Jashn-e Rampur, India International Centre, October 2022.

This short film was prepared as part of the project Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India.