A fascinating legacy from a bygone era

 

This report caught my imagination.

In northern India's Uttar Pradesh state, a team of workers is carefully restoring a centuries-old royal kitchen that once fed the rulers of the former princely state of Awadh.

Tucked within the sprawling complex of Chota Imambara - a mausoleum and congregation hall - this kitchen in Lucknow is a reminder of a different kind of royal legacy. Built in 1837 by former Awadh ruler Muhammad Ali Shah, the site once served not just the elite, but the public too.

At its peak, the meals here were prepared for both the royal household and ordinary people, especially during religious gatherings and special occasions.

. . .

According to historians, in 1839, Muhammad Ali Shah gave 3.6m rupees - considered a vast sum in those days - to the East India Company, then a British trading enterprise, on the condition that it would be responsible for maintaining the monuments built by the Awadh nawabs, while the kitchen would continue to run on the interest earned from the fund.

After India became independent 1947, this money was transferred into a local bank.

Today, the kitchen is managed by the Hussainabad Trust - a state government-monitored body - which continues to use the interest to fund and manage the kitchen's operations.

That legacy lives on in the meals still served here, prepared to the same standards laid down generations ago.

. . .

Historian Roshan Taqui says the king was determined to ensure the kitchen kept running without interruption.

To handle the scale of cooking, he built two identical kitchens on either side of the Chota Imambara - a design that also reflects Awadhi architecture's heavy emphasis on symmetry, he adds.

The concept of twin kitchens is proving useful to this day.

"During this Ramadan, while restoration was underway in one of the kitchens, cooking continued in the other," Taqui says.

There's more at the link, including details of the ongoing restoration of the two-century-old kitchens using original materials and techniques.  There are several photographs of the process.

It's fascinating to think how different faiths such as Christianity and Islam could give rise to similar concepts of alms-giving on the part of the rich and powerful.  In Europe, knights and barons might endow a monastery or hospital or way-station for pilgrims, something that would be useful for generations to come, in the same way as Muhammad Ali Shah decreed that his palace kitchens would feed the poor as well as his household.  Both operated on the principle of "storing up treasure in heaven", where one's good deeds may help to offset the less good or downright sinful ones - a very common approach to faith in earlier times.

I could wish that some of our modern oligarchs and rulers might continue the practice . . .

Peter