While researching the Fringe, I discovered another event in Edinburgh that gave me a severe case of FOMO. The Edinburgh International Book Festival is billed as “the world-leading festival of words, literature, and ideas… the largest public celebration of the written word in the world, bringing together over 500 events with the most exciting writers and thinkers on the planet to ignite imaginations, foster human connection, and challenge the status quo.” Well, how could I resist that?
The EIBF’s footprint and visibility are much smaller than the Fringe’s. It takes place at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, on the campus of the University of Edinburgh, in a lovely ivy-covered building and the adjacent lawn. I found a suitably food-oriented event, Asma Khan In Conversation. It took place in a temporary building erected for the EIBF, the Salon Perdue.
And, bonus! Here’s where I learned about a brand-new-to-me phenomenon: the Spiegeltent, a touring performance venue, which from the outside looks as if it should house a carousel. Follow this link and you will learn that these pavilions were first made during the early 20th century to house dance halls and similar pleasurable events. It certainly felt like a magical space!
Another temporary structure held a Waterstone’s bookstore. It had the usual sections, with one new to me.
“Hell is Cambridge in Winter”
Asma Khan is the owner and chef of Darjeeling Express, a world-famous London restaurant. When she followed her husband to Britain after an arranged marriage, she couldn’t cook and had no intention of making a career of cooking Indian comfort food. Yet, she has supported so many women in her kitchen and abroad that she has been recognized as one of TIME magazine’s Most Influential People in the World in 2024.
Feeling cold and homesick in Cambridge drove her to ask an aunt to teach her to cook. This led to hosting supper clubs in her home, which outgrew both the premises and her husband’s patience. (This was after she earned a PhD in British Constitutional Law.) When she opened Darjeeling Express, she employed Indian home cooks and “second daughters;” she knew (because she is one) that these women are culturally denigrated for the sole reason that they were not born boys.
She contends that Indian restaurant food in the diaspora bears no relationship to what Indians eat at home. This is because restaurants are run by men who make up the food! The staff at Darjeeling Express work in a kitchen with no hierarchy. Everyone gets paid the same.
When Netflix’s Chef’s Table filmed the segment on her restaurant, she was the only chef in the series who asked to show her team. She took the opportunity to speak out about worldwide injustice to women. She has gone on to organize a café, run by women, in a Yazidi refugee camp. She hopes to do the same in a Rohingya camp in Bangladesh.
Hearing her made me think about planning a trip to London just to eat at her restaurant. Meanwhile, I will have to be content with her cookbook: Ammu: Indian Home Cooking to Nourish Your Soul, Interlink Books, 2022.