By M. Diane McCormick 

When Sri Dasgupta was a child, she found her mother’s elementary school textbook. The geography book explored global cultures through the lives of children. 

“I was so fascinated with that book,” she said. “That’s what started my curiosity about people in different parts of the world, how they live, what they eat, and why they eat what they eat. Over the years, it just morphed, and I grew increasingly interested.” 

Today, Dasgupta shares her fascination with the world’s culinary riches through her Lancaster-based catering service, Upohar World Kitchen. She will appear at Alexander Family Library on May 25 for The Library’s Taste the World series. 

What are you reading? 

“Hungry Planet” by Faith D’Aluisio and Peter Menzel shows a week’s worth of groceries in different countries. I recently read “Horse” by Geraldine Brooks and “The Personal Librarian” by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. They are stories about race relations, based on actual events but fictionalized. 

“Horse” is about a stallion, and the fiction goes back and forth between the groom and a modern-day art historian. It’s beautifully written and shows how much and how little has changed for African Americans.  

“Personal Librarian” is about a Black woman who could pass as white and did pass as white. She was the personal librarian for J.P. Morgan, building up his collection and, all the while, hiding in public. 

Why these books? 

“Horse” and “The Personal Librarian” allow me and the readers to understand the experience of Black Americans and how it is to live in a society with these rules. This is not my lived experience, but I gained an understanding through these stories. I cannot imagine living like that, always careful about what to say and what not to say. It brings forward a different kind of awareness, an empathy you don’t get from reading a history book. 

How have the books changed your outlook? 

People ask if I have ever experienced racism. I don’t think so, but then I read these books and realized that’s what it was. I was at a networking event when I told the gentleman next to me that I have a catering business, and he said, “Yum,” and rubbed his belly. 

I realize now you would not do that to a male, white, American chef. I would not have recognized that before, but now, having read these books and understood the biases and condescension, I can see it.  

What do you hope visitors will experience with your Taste the World presentation? 

I hope people come with curiosity. If they don’t like it, that’s cool. I just hope they show up with curiosity.