Research Practices
The work of the House begins from a simple premise: food is history.
Archival texts, spoken memory, and historical reconstructed methodology used on food are few of the many approaches we use to understand how food has shaped humanity. Our concept, which we define as the architecture of food, illuminates how labour was organised, how households function, and how social relationships are structured around food.
Research moves between archives, kitchens, classrooms, and community spaces. Different methods are used depending on the question being studied.
Research Themes
The work of the House returns to several recurring areas of enquiry: These themes continue to expand as new archival material and fieldwork emerge.
Domestic labour and kitchens
Food and caste
Gendered practices of cooking and serving
Colonial food systems in the Indian subcontinent
Vernacular culinary archives and Urdu food texts
Urban food memory and the history of Delhi
Current Research
Several projects are currently underway
Food and Domestic Life in Nineteenth-Century Delhi
Archival research based on Urdu vernacular texts, household manuals, and memoirs.
The History of Delhi Through 10 Meals
A study of the city’s history through specific meals and the worlds that produced them.
Oral Food Histories of Delhi Households
Recorded conversations documenting memories of kitchens and everyday cooking.
Foraged Foods and Urban Ecologies
Field observation of plants once common in Delhi kitchens and now largely forgotten.