ideally, the biryani that brings us all together

Saniya Jafri

This Exposition is a brief ironic comment on the ongoing degradation, commodification, and colonisation of food and its many dimensions — recipes, ingredients, context — and a reflection on the territorial definitions that shape identity, in this case of South Asians and the Global South, once bound together as a people and still united in the brieftopian world of the Author’s Greatest Biryani: an amalgamative dish of political and cultural reproductions, drenched in time, where old and new contest identity. Through a conversational, autoethnographic lens, the exposition blends historical, colonial, and territorial reflections, using Biryani as both departure point and metaphor for shared identity and dislocation. Visual collages — archival, familial, and sourced — act as probes connecting memory, culture, and belonging. Ultimately, the work offers the Author’s Greatest Biryani as a living document of generational knowledge and a utopian gesture, inviting both insiders and outsiders to gather around a dish transcending borders and time.

cooking is not generally considered a creative and artistic practice.

or that a recipe could also be a sort of research method, which is much less obvious, a bit like a festive communion, a table with a tablecloth prepared to make a wonderful dinner together, not essentially to follow the recipe but to learn, embody, and speak its language...

NOTE - HOW TO NAVIGATE THE EXPOSITION

At any time, hovering your mouse over the top left corner of the screen will reveal a navigation bar. Under Contents, you can see where you are within the exposition, navigate to any chapter, and view the overall order of the chapters. Under Navigation, you can get a visual overview of the chapter you are on. Under Abstract, you can access the abstract at any time. For the flow intended by me, you can simply scroll down on each chapter to find buttons leading to the next chapter or other key chapters.

CLICK HERE

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