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Taltala Tales
Alok Nandi’s project Taltala Tales looks into several layers of everyday life in Kolkata, India, with cuisine as a transversal, cross-thematic, vehicle. “Bengalis are perhaps the greatest food lovers in the Indian subcontinent. Their cuisine, developed over the centuries, is based on a meticulous selection of local ingredients: rice, fish, meat, fruits, vegetables and a variety of spices.” Chitrita Banerji, in her book on life & food in Bengal, allows us to travel into the fascinating scapes of cuisine, and also of the city of Kolkata, a.k.a. Calcutta, where Bangla Ranna (cuisine) coexists with Firinghee Flavours; these Firinghees came from Portugal, Holland, ... with their cheese, their beer ...
Easy it was to go in the bazaar early in the morning, fascinating with their products, fresh, coming from rural areas. While, during the day, moving in the city center was a challenge. The city was “frozen” and enjoying the fascinating diversity of food was quasi impossible.
How come a city so full of energy, of juice, is so out of system at certain times of the day ? How to involve the stakeholders so that they continue enjoy going to markets and buy their foods smoothly ?
“Taltala Tales” is aiming to see how design, at large (experience design, service design, ...), can help the city solve its paradoxical situation where traffic jams and other nuisances (pollution, ...) block the city center during hours, while the same area is a key place for getting fresh products, in their diversity. The ideal, in a two-three years plan, is to be able to enjoy the diversity of Kolkata’s cuisine tastes why not suffering the inability to circulate.
The design approach will build on the “collect, connect, convert” methodology: collect stories and connect issues, communicate possible solutions and convert these into actions (from adda to actions). Collect cases from designers worldwide; collect stories from inhabitants. Confront all these material. Doors of Perception is the place to launch the project by involving designers with their experience of issues in different parts of the world and confront to design challenges of Kolkata. Can some of the cases evoked at Doors be applied to Kolkata ? How ? Are these of interest to the city ? Localisation of food systems (Community Supported Agriculture), Urban farming (rooftop, vertical…), Sustainable packaging and distribution, Food information systems (food miles, energy use, GMOs);... Taltala Tales will look at “localities” (tala), food circulation, freshness, transportation from Sundarban, ... How to enjoy the gourmet’s paradise ? from Bengali Chingri Maacher Malai Kari to kebabs of Kabul and Vindallo of Goa, ...
Looking for sustainable flows to enjoy fresh food in a non frozen city.
Cuisine as Design, Design as Cuisine.
Links
“The Calcutta Cook Book”, by Minakshie Dasgupta & al., Penguin, 1995
“Life & Food in Bengal”, by Chitrita Banerjee, Penguin, 2005
Project details
http://www.architempo.net/cuisine
About the author
Alok Nandi (India/Belgium)
Posted by alex at February 4, 2007 11:24 AM
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