The woman who made the Calcutta biryani a global craving said that the dish was like the city itself, layered and welcoming.

Asma Khan, who runs the Darjeeling Express at Kingly Court in London, was at her alma mater, Loreto College, on Monday afternoon.

Bengal has always embraced outsiders, and this is how Khan, both a chef and a restaurateur, represents Calcutta to the world.

“When I talk about Calcutta, it allows me to speak about the way Bengal has always embraced the outsider, especially at a time when the outsider is seen as the enemy,” Khan told Metro.

“There are issues about migrants everywhere right now, and race is being used as a political tool. Politicians are talking about hatred, and I, by speaking about Calcutta, by talking about how beautiful our food is, that we embrace these people and we celebrate through their food,” she said.

For the woman who has served Biryani with the aloo to King Charles and other global A-listers, Calcutta is probably the “food capital” of the world.

The city allows one to appreciate the “layering” from the dolma (stuffed dish) to the vegetable chop (Portuguese croquet), Khan said.

“... this is the beauty of Calcutta, where, almost like the layers that you see when you go through these old houses, the trees growing out of it, in that crack, there are whispering stories of people who are here. They have left their culinary foodprints,” Khan informed Metro.

The Career Counselling Cell of Loreto College organised an interactive session with Khan, who studied history in the college from 1987 to 1990, and is now the force behind an all-female kitchen.

She told her young audience that her kitchen comprises 15 Hindu women.

“This is what it is about, solidarity of women, above religion, above caste, above everything that divides... the politics and power that comes from the kitchen is above all these differences,” said Khan.

Food was her calling, which she took up despite hurdles in her 40s.

She started her restaurant at the age of 48, and the average age of the women in her kitchen is 50, she said.

When she visited the bank to present a business project and requested 10,000 pounds, the men there ridiculed her.

“‘What a lovely hobby, Mrs Khan. Call us to your house for tea.’ The dismissal of three men in suits, that the business project that I had worked on and presented to them with honour and pride and humility, they mocked.”

Khan said it is never too late.

Her Michelin Guide restaurant is an “oasis and safe space for all women”.

“ I realised what underpins this whole thing is that men are seen as professionals because people pay them,” she said.

Well-meaning people told her that she would fail because she had women who were not professionals.

“The only reason my women were not professional was that no one made them. No one thought a home cook was worthy of money, that a home cook could wear the whites of a chef,” she said.

During the hour-long interaction with the students, Khan repeated several times that it was a legacy she was leaving for the many women she would not live to see.

“When I decided to take up food as my path, I saw myself as a river, a river that is moistening the ground, breaking the barriers, carving out the stones.... I will break every barrier. I will use the force that is inside me like a river breaks down dams, I would scar the stones and moisten the ground. I will move on,
but in that moist ground grow seeds of women who would be powerful,” Khan said.

“Do not throw away the ladder. Do not pull away the ladder. If you make it, this is your absolute duty to pull up other women. Call out bullying, call out racism. Do not stay silent because you are strong. If you stay silent, you let down everybody around you,” she told the students.

As she continues to serve A-listers, the joy is not in the cooking but in seeing someone relish the food.

“Nothing gave me as much joy as watching someone eat Biryani and using their hands to break the aloo in cold London. That gave me more joy. I have realised that nothing gives me as much pleasure... not so much the cooking, but watching someone eat,” she said.