Chingri Maach

Chingri Maach (8″ x 11”), an handwritten Bengali shrimp curry recipe is annotated by the artist to trace ingredient sourcing and substitutions in so-called Vancouver.

The juxtaposition of Bengali script and fragmented English annotations introduces an intentional opacity – rendering the recipe accessible only to those fluent in its dual linguistic codes.

Featured in ROOM, Canada’s oldest feminist literary magazine,
Chingri Maach 8″ x 11” is an experimental piece presenting a handwritten recipe for Bengali shrimp curry—chingri macher malai curry—a celebratory dish traditionally made with giant freshwater shrimps, galda or bagda chingri. The project is inherently collaborative, originating from a recipe written by the artist’s mother upon their migration to so-called Canada. Overlaid with the artist’s annotations in English, the text traces efforts to procure the specific ingredients from grocery stores in so-called Vancouver, also noting the substitutions made when those ingredients proved unavailable.