Funoon London - Celebrating London's Cultural Collisions

Eid with Empress Market’s exquisite Gulab Jamuns

We’re delighted to share the recipe for Empress Market’s exquisite Gulab Jamuns to celebrate your lockdown Eid this weekend. Head Chef Numra’s family recipe is infused with tales of cooking the mithai through generations. The sweet smell of the frying dough balls and cardamom syrup wafting through her home the day before Eid evoke Numra’s childhood memories of Eid in Pakistan. We hope you manage to make your own batch of fried, syrupy sweetness this weekend – wishing you all delicious Eid. INGREDIENTS

Dough balls

100g fine semolina…

The magical, meditative khayaal gaiki of Ustad Naseeruddin Saami
17 November 2019

بره بره… الفسد والحسد ما بقى أمانة

Out! Out! Sadness, hate and the reign of arbitrary

These lines from Rachid Taha’s hit number Barra Barra echoed through the speakers in the moments leading up to Ustad Saami’s 11pm performance at the 2019 WOMAD Festival earlier in the year. A clever choice for pre-show playlist. Like the Ustad, the late Rachid Taha was a towering figure in global/fusion/world music. Fitting words too – for what was also the first weekend of a Boris Johnson government.

The huge, beautiful Siam tent is full as…

Funoon London’s Summer Soulstice with the Saami Brothers
4 August 2019

Har cheez ko apni asl ki tarf lautna hai.’

Everything will always return to its source.

A sacred reminder from the Saami Brothers as they speak about why Qawwali has endured and flourished since Amir Khusrau trained the Qawwal Bachay – from whom the brothers are descended – as the first proponents of the genre in 13th century Delhi. “We may wander for long periods”, they said in a 2015 interview, “or become distracted, but when we hear…