There is something alluring about royalty! As Kunwar Rani Kulsum Begum makes an appearance at ITC Sonar’s coffee shop Eden Pavilion, her poise and effortless charm duly confirm that.
Strike a conversation with her and you are transformed into an era, long gone but hardly forgotten. This niece of Nawab Yusuf Ali Salar Jung III has another fascinating facet in her repertoire, charting that course has brought her to Kolkata. Having assimilated and preserved the closely guarded recipes from the royal kitchen of her ancestors, she has turned them into a fine dining affair. “Tradition dictated that, recipes be passed on only to daughters-in-law and not daughters who would marry into other families. So Buggo Begum, my grandmother was passionately protective about her recipes,” she says.
But when Kulsum went to Lucknow as a young bride in 1975, the Awadhi cuisine didn’t suit her palette. It took some serious persuasion over long distance phone calls to her nani who finally relented and shared the culinary secrets of her clan.
“The gateway to some 300 recipes were exclusively opened to me and it took me almost six years to master the art,” she recalls.
Evaluating on the reasons that sets the Salar Jung recipes apart from other cooking styles, the ITC food consultant comments, “Begums of the Salar Jung family would sit with hakims to understand the correlation between food and health, and their seasonal benefits.”
Kulsum hopes to lift the veil of secrecy and pen down the culinary exploration in a book.
The gastronomic indulgence of Nazakat is available at Eden Pavilion till September 23.