Madhushree Ghosh’s latest food and travel narrative memoir,
SAFAR: Finding Home, History and Culture through Punjabi Food in the American West is available for pre-order.

“Safar: Finding Home, History, and Culture through Punjabi Food in the American West”

is the journey of South Asian refugees, immigrants and their children—in particular, Sikhs, Jats and Muslims—who moved to the southwestern states of America over centuries as farmers, truck drivers, restaurant owners and dhaba/diner stall cooks.

An expedition in search of the asli or real Punjabi food, award-winning author Madhushree Ghosh explores how their food traveled from British India pre-partition (1947) to now, covering the different waves of Punjabi immigration to the southwest through the years as a result of war, fear, deprivation or for a better future.

Interwoven in Safar is Madhushree’s own immigrant journey as a graduate student to America in 1993, her quest to find home through the food her Bengali refugee parents made which then translated to a physical journey she embarked on to visit the different Punjabi communities in California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Four Punjabi women represent the different immigration waves to the American West, and the food and recipes they brought with them. Safar shares stories of displacement, discrimination, community, and hope. Featuring essential Punjabi recipes, this is a poignant reflection on what it means to find home and identity through food and culture as an immigrant to the United States.

Praise for Safar:

“Safar beautifully shows how generations of Sikhs—and Sikh women in particular—have made their homes in North America and have stayed connected to their ancestors and to their homelands in Punjab through food, culture, tradition, all while building an inclusive community.” —Simran Jeet Singh, author of The Light We Give

“Khabaar:
An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family”

Non-fiction: Narrative

Pushcart-nominated essayist Madhushree Ghosh’s “Khabaar: An Immigrant Journey of Food, Memory and Family”, expanding on a Longreads essay that received a Notable Mention in The Best American Food Writing 2020, weaving the stories of her refugee Bengali parents, her own move from India to America, and innovative South Asian chefs, and how they used food to recreate their worlds in a new place and maintain connections with their families and cultures. University of Iowa Press, publication date April 4, 2022, by Dana Newman at Dana Newman Literary (world English).