Kashmirs 600-year-old wedding-feast tradition Wazwan adapts to modern times

Ghulam Nabi Baba, 74, is among the traditional Wazwan chefs who trace their lineage back to that migration. His forefathers settled in Srinagar’s old city as part of a community of cooks known as Wazpora.

“There were only seven mutton dishes at that time. Over the centuries we added more, and now there are around 20 dishes,” Baba said.

“Forty years ago in Delina (a village in north Kashmir), I cooked 4,500 kg of meat. That was a very big wedding,” he said. “Normally, at an average marriage we cook 200 kgs of mutton.”

While the menu has expanded, the cooking method has changed little, with lightly spiced meat pounded by hand before it is cooked slowly over wood fires.

People eat from a Trami during a Kashmiri Wazwan. Reuters/File

Baba said he joined his father at the age of 15 to learn the craft and has now spent nearly six decades cooking at Kashmiri weddings.

But rather than following in his footsteps, his own son has opened a restaurant.

“Our kids didn’t continue the tradition of cooking in weddings because they said it’s too hectic,” he said.

The work hours are better in restaurants, while in weddings one has to work around the clock. The younger Baba says he is still carrying forward the family’s centuries-old culinary legacy, albeit in a different setting.