Dr Tarana Husain Khan

Dr Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and food historian. Her articles have been published in prominent media outlets such as Al Jazeera, Eaten Magazine, Scroll, Bruit, Open Magazine, The Wire, Mint, Goya and in the anthologies  Desi Delicacies  (Pan Macmillan, India) and Dastarkhwan: Food Writing from South Asia and Diaspora ( Beacon Books, UK). Her research article, ‘Narrating Rampur Cuisine: Cookbooks, Forgotten Foods and Culinary Memories’ was  published in Global Food History Journal (April 2023 Issue). Her research article ‘Resurrecting Tilak Chandan: The Fall and Future Rise of Local  Rice Varieties in North India’ shall be published in  Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies (25.1 Spring Issue 2025)

Tarana is the author of a critically acclaimed book on Rampur cuisine, Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (Penguin Random House India) and a bestselling historical fiction The Begum and the Dastan which won the Kalinga Literary Award for fiction and was shortlisted for Women Writer’s Award by She The People. She has co-edited and contributed to an anthology of food writings, Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India). 

She worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield on an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, ‘Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India’ (2019-2024).