KASHMIR WAZWAN

A Bollywood producer, currently shooting in Srinagar, triggered a controversy by claiming that he has introduced veg-Wazwaan. He simply mistook a typical thali as wazwan. The backlash led him to delete the tweet. The controversy, however, encouraged a learned man to attempt a brief introduction to the key Kashmir cuisine using medieval chronicles as the source

In terms of its culinary heritage, Kashmir can rightly say to be a jannat for the food enthusiast. Wazwan defines the Kashmiri love for food, and for those who love mutton, it is a feast that you need to relish. But, then like so many practices and customs in our society, Wazwan does not have a ‘start’- a specific point and date in history easily traceable when it could be said to have been introduced and established in our society.

Rather, it is an evolutionary journey of our love for food and spices and commencing with the arrival of Persian Sufis and artisan in the court of Shahamiri Sultans, and progressively expanding so that somewhere by late Afghan period it assumed a form that broadly resembles its essence today.

TAZKIA RECORDS

So, the intriguing question always remains where do we trace its roots from? Unfortunately, we hardly find any detailed information on the material culture of Kashmiri society under the rule of Kashmiri Sultans in contemporaneous political histories. Yet, we do find occasional glimpses on how the society was getting transformed in this period in various tazkira’s - hagiographical accounts related to the functioning of various Sufiorders in Kashmir. Central Asian Department of the University of Kashmir has published q 2-volume Tazkira, rendered into English from Persian by Dr G R Jan. These tazkira’s not only helped us in tracing the contours of Muslim society during the medieval period but also serve as an important source for understanding how Persianate and later on Mughal cultural influences got introduced to Kashmiri society.