India's moveable feasts

Whose samosa is it anyway? The story of where Indian Food really came from

Author: Sonal Ved
Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 202

Price: Rs 499

The title of this book is disappointingly derivative and does no justice to this outstanding account of the origins of Indian — actually South Asian — cuisine, the influences it has absorbed and the insights it provides into the cultural overlay of this region.

Three years ago, Sonal Ved’s award-winning Tiffin was a tour de force. She explored regional cuisine and included dishes selected by local culinary experts, including wedding caterers. Some of the dishes in Tiffin can only be found in homes: Gujarat’s kutchi kadak, for instance, Rajasthani dahi samosa maas, bajre ka soyta and khoba roti, and the Goanese Caril De Galinha.

In her second book, Ms Ved is more ambitious. She asks the complicated question: Where “Indian” food really came from.  She says she was struck by an article published by the BBC about a project undertaken by archaeologists Arunima Kashyap and Steve Weber of Vancouver’s Washington State University in 2010, trying to find clues to the earliest foods of the Indian subcontinent. The duo conducted a starch analysis of molecules gathered from the utensils and tools found on the excavation site in Farmana—south-east of the largest Harappan city of Rakhigarhi. They used this method to determine what the Harappans ate during the peak years of their civilisation from 2500 BCE to 1800 BCE. Molecules of starch were extracted from pots, pans, stone tools and the dental enamel of both humans and animal fossils, since animals were often fed leftovers. 

Ms Kashyap and Mr Weber’s research pointed to the possibility of eggplant, turmeric and ginger (maybe even clove), and they came up with a rough recipe “proto curry”, or what may have been the subcontinent’s very first curry. The research shows that Harappans used sesame, flax and linseed for oil. As extraction of these oils is a complicated exercise, the dishes must have displayed a degree of sophistry.

At the end of the day, food choices and cuisines deriving from them make a religious and political statement. Baldly stated, the question is: Did the Vedic society eat cow? Ms Ved says those who have studied the Indus diet “claim that the people drank goat, sheep and cow milk and ate their meat as well” (there’s a footnote for the benefit of those who reach for their matchboxes to set fire to this book). She’s neither endorsing the claim nor contesting it. We live in times when food is political like never before. Instead Ms Ved tries to trace how different cuisines came to become “Indian”. She reveals, for instance, that “chaat” was created by the Mughals. When Shah Jahan fell ill, he was asked to eat food loaded with spices to strengthen his immunity. Chaat was created by the royal khansamah as a dish that was light but tasty. Chaat unites India like nothing else: The dahi vada, an essential element, is as well-loved in the north as in the south, east and west of the country. Khichri, ditto. If chaat came from the Mughals, they adopted khichri, which was a local speciality, and adapted it. Aurangzeb, Ms Ved notes, was especially fond of khichri with pickle and salted fish on the side.

Two classes (for want of a better word) were harbingers of new influences on “traditional” Indian food: Royalty, which travelled abroad and mingled with different cultures, sometimes marrying into them; and traders who forayed into different parts of the globes and in the quest to preserve their cultural origins ended up influencing them. Ms Ved traces European influences in the food of Rajasthan royalty and detects traces of Nepali food in the culinary traditions of the Scindias after the 1900s — when the clan married into Nepal and vice versa. While sekuwa (skewered roast) and russ (a Nepali chicken soup) were incorporated into the royal cuisine, she mentions Nepali anda (a fluffy omelette with garlic green, chillies and cheese). To my knowledge, in Nepal, the egg is called “khukhura ko phool” (flower of the hen) and cheese is pretty much unknown in local cuisine. What is essential for a dish to qualify to be Nepali is a spice called timur, or szechuan peppercorn. She tracks the movements of the Portuguese who gave so much to Indian cuisine and Dutch traders who refined traditions of coffee and tea.

Ms Ved explores the world of food through the Indian cultural leader Rabindranath Tagore. She describes the Khamkheyali Sabha (Assembly of the Whimsical), the club founded by Tagore for friends where he insisted that only unique food be served. The family collected menus and recipes from across the world and some dishes that were off the beaten track — like jackfruit yoghurt “fish” curry (that had no fish), jimikand jalebi and parwal and prawn raita.

Ms Ved’s exposition into the rainbow world of Indian food doesn’t stop with Indian independence. She describes the work of pioneers working to develop an Indian “taste”: Vadilal and their vegetarian ice cream, the contribution of houses such as Parle, and contemporary pioneers of Indian cuisine such as Gaggan Anand, Vikas Khanna (whose New York restaurant Junoon  has won a Michelin star for six years consecutively) and Garima Arora, the only Indian woman chef to get a Michelin star.

The scope of the book is breath-taking and the research flawless. It will be especially valued by those who are humble enough to cast dogma about nationalism aside and prepared to embark on a journey to understand what India is — and what it wants to be.