Khichdi is a simple dish prepared in the north Indian city of Rampur in the Rohilkhand region of Uttar Pradesh by cooking rice with urad dal and spices. With historical and cultural significance, it remains staple to the winter diet of all social strata. Since the 1980s, however, the rice variety previously used, tilak chandan, has experienced near-extinction in the face of growing dependence on hybrid varieties. The disappearance of this local rice reflects broader trends in agro-biodiversity associated with the Green Revolution compounded by global climate change. This essay explores these eco-cultural tensions by charting the efforts of an interdisciplinary and international collaboration bringing together historians, plant scientists, and farmers to resurrect tilak chandan and other traditional varieties in the Rampur rice belt. Field trials at Benazir Farm in Rampur (2020–22) revealed the challenges of cultivating local heritage varieties, including: (1) recovery of seeds; (2) longer growing cycles, meaning higher exposure to pests and fungal infections; (3) height and uneven growth, making plants prone to lodging when hit by weather vagaries compounded by climate change; and (4) very low outputs resulting in high prices. Still, there remains high demand for tilak chandan and other traditional varieties due to their distinct sensory attributes of taste, texture, and aroma linked to cultural and gastronomic heritage. To make these landraces more available and reliable in India’s current soil and climate conditions, we suggest incorporating their preferential characteristics into a form that is also high-yielding, drought tolerant, and pest resistant.
Resurrecting Tilak Chandan: The Fall and Future Rise of Local Rice Varieties in North India
Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and food historian based in India. Her writings have been published in prominent media outlets and in the anthologies Desi Delicacies (Pan Macmillan India, 2023) and Dastarkhwan: Food Writing from Muslim South Asia (Beacon Books, UK, 2021). Her research article “Narrating Rampur Cuisine: Cookbooks, Forgotten Foods and Culinary Memories” was published in Global Food History Journal (April 2023 Issue). Tarana is the author of Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (Penguin Random House India, 2023) and The Begum and the Dastan (Hachette, 2023). She has co-edited and contributed to the anthology Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan India, 2023). She worked as a Research Fellow and Consultant at the University of Sheffield on an AHRC-funded project “Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India” (2019–2023).
Duncan Cameron is Professor of Environmental Sustainability at the University of Manchester. His research seeks to understand how soil microbes enhance plant nutrition and health in the context of sustainable agriculture and global food security. Currently, he co-leads the Healthy Soil, Healthy Food, Healthy People consortium as part of UKRI’s “Transforming UK food systems” program.
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Professor of Global History at the University of Sheffield. Since 2019, she has led the project “Forgotten Food: Culinary Memory, Local Heritage and Lost Agricultural Varieties in India.” Most recently, she co-edited Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia (Pan Macmillan, 2023).
Tarana Husain Khan, Duncan Cameron, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley; Resurrecting Tilak Chandan: The Fall and Future Rise of Local Rice Varieties in North India. Gastronomica 1 February 2025; 25 (1): 24–38. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2025.25.1.24
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