The Wild Thyme Cookbook: Preserving Hunza’s Culinary Wisdom

A Celebration of Heritage, Healing, and the Heart of Hunza

The Wild Thyme Cookbook is a love letter to Hunza’s disappearing culinary heritage, a visually rich, deeply personal archive that honors a food culture shaped by wisdom, restraint, and reverence for the land. It tells a story that cannot be found in mainstream cookbooks: a story carried in oral traditions, wild herbs, fermented grains, and the hands of grandmothers who still cook without written recipes.

This cookbook is not simply a collection of dishes, it is an act of preservation. A cultural offering. A record of memory before it fades.

I’m Elizabeth-Whitney Kanaan, a restaurateur, writer, and humanitarian who has spent the past 24 years living and working in Pakistan - particularly in the breathtaking, culturally layered region of Gilgit-Baltistan. My work in development and public health has taken me across the country, but it was in Hunza that I encountered a kind of culinary intelligence that felt both ancient and urgent. In 2017, I opened Wild Thyme Hunza Cuisine & Marketplace as a way to honor and reimagine these ancestral foodways in a modern context.

Now, I’m asking for your help to take the next step: to commit this living heritage to paper, to protect it from erasure, and to share it with the world in a form that respects its roots.

Why this matters now:

As tourism and modernization accelerate across Pakistan’s mountain regions, ancestral foodways, especially those passed down orally, are vanishing. Homegrown traditions are being replaced by commercial shortcuts. Young people are moving away from centuries-old practices. The knowledge held by grandmothers, farmers, and foragers is at risk of disappearing with them.

Through intimate interviews, heritage recipes, and stunning photography, The Wild Thyme Cookbook will serve as a cultural time capsule, a way to document and honor a food system rooted in sustainability, longevity, and profound respect for nature. This is not just a cookbook. It is a cultural archive, a preservation project, and an act of gratitude to a region that has given so much.

Funds raised will directly support:

- High-quality printing and production.

- Professional editing, layout, and design.

- Photographic documentation.

- Video storytelling.

- Distribution to libraries, institutions, book shops and communities across Pakistan and abroad.

Every dollar helps us get closer to preserving this legacy in the way it deserves.

The Wild Thyme Cookbook will feature:

- 12 heirloom dishes + 4 traditional wellness drinks from the Hunza Valley.

- Oral histories and family stories gathered from Hunzakut households.

- A special chapter on indigenous herbs and ancestral food-as-medicine traditions.

- Rich, full-color photography.

- A glossary of indigenous ingredients with sourcing tips, health benefits, and uses.

This project will resonate with:

- Food lovers and home cooks drawn to wellness, sustainability, and heritage cuisine.

- Members of the South Asian diaspora seeking reconnection through food.

- Readers who appreciate coffee table books that blend design, storytelling, and culture.

- Academic institutions teaching anthropology, South Asian studies, or food heritage.

- Fans and patrons of the Wild Thyme Hunza Cuisine & Marketplace.

Timeline:

The project begins in August 2025, with completion targeted for March 2026. This includes research, writing, photography, layout, and printing — all independently managed to ensure integrity and care.

About the Author:

With over 20 years of humanitarian work in Pakistan - from writing for UNICEF and USAID to partnering with the Aga Khan Foundation - I have spent my life advocating for voices that are often overlooked. In 2017, I launched Wild Thyme Hunza Cuisine & Marketplace in Islamabad, blending activism with entrepreneurship to introduce Pakistan’s ancient superfoods to a wider audience. The Wild Thyme Cookbook is the next step in that journey. And I can’t do it without your support.

How you can help:

- Donate what you can, every contribution counts.

- Share this campaign with others who care about food, culture, and preservation.

- Support our mission by following the journey and joining our community of storytellers and stewards of heritage.

Let’s honor the wisdom of those who came before us. Let’s preserve what still remains.

With deepest gratitude,

Elizabeth-Whitney Kanaan