Chitrita Banerji grew up in Calcutta and received her master's degree in English from Harvard University. She is an internationally recognized writer on Bengali food, and is the author of Life and Food in Bengal, Bengali Cooking, and Feeding the Gods. A two-time winner of Sophie Coe awards in Food and History, she has written about food for Gourmet, Granta and the American Prospect among others. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.