Wazwan — the great ceremonial feast of Kashmir — is one of the most elaborate culinary traditions in South Asia, involving up to 36 meat dishes cooked by a team of specialist waza cooks over two days. The full version is served at weddings and major celebrations; individual dishes from the wazwan repertoire appear in restaurant menus throughout Srinagar. Learning to cook a few of them is a reasonable half-day investment.
Several Srinagar families and a few small operations offer cooking classes focused on Kashmiri cuisine. The typical format involves a morning trip to the market to buy ingredients, followed by cooking rogan josh, dum aloo, and one or two other dishes with an experienced home cook. The classes are small — rarely more than four or five participants — and the format is genuinely participatory rather than demonstration-only. Cooking schools are less formalised here than in the major Indian culinary tourism destinations (Rajasthan, Kerala), which means the experience is more variable but can be more authentic. Ask at your houseboat or hotel for recommendations; the better operations work through word of mouth.