In this conversation, memoirist, food writer, and social justice activist Madhushree Ghosh will discuss how the British Raj converted food production into indigo production in colonial India, the effect of this on 19th century Bengal (where her ancestors come from) and how food--in particular, chai--became a symbol of activism, rebellion, and a carrion call for independence. She will use examples from her award-winning food narrative memoir, Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family to illustrate how food represents the indentured, the colonized, and the immigrants.
Madhushree will enable an audience-centric discussion on how food travels through immigration, migration, and indenture and how crops like Blue Gold/Indigo and tea (in Assam and Darjeeling) were a symbol of systematic colonial practices by the British in effect, pushing us to ask, "What is truly authentic?"
About Madhushree Ghosh
Madhushree Ghosh is the daughter of refugees and an immigrant. She is the author of the 2022 award-winning food narrative memoir, Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family. Her TEDx San Diego talk “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food” highlights San Diego’s East African refugee women farmers.
Madhushree uses food writing to explore the cultural and historical ways food travels and what it tells us about people’s migrations and immigrations including enslavement and indenture through colonization and capture. Her work has been Pushcart-nominated, selected as a Best American Essay in Food Writing and has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Magazine, Vogue India, Poets & Writers, Longreads, High Country News and others.
Currently she’s working on her second food travel narrative, Safar, about Punjabi Sikh migrations to the American west. Madhushree runs the popular global literary salon and supper club, KhabaarCo, bringing culinary conversations highlighting changemakers and community leaders. Madhushree holds a PhD in biochemistry, a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University. She can be reached at @writemadhushree