Despite the number of recipe books that continue to be churned out every year, food writing in India is a grossly underrepresented genre.
If you like to read about food and its cultural context, the many links that exist between cuisines, and the history and provenance of popular dishes, there’s precious little available by way of research. But there are two books that I’d like to recommend this week: The Emperor’s Table — The Art of Mughal Cuisine (Roli) is a much-awaited title by researcher and consultant Salma Husain, long known for her insights into old Persian texts, the “history of the kebabs” and other such traditions.
The book that came out a few months ago is a chronicle of the food practices of the Great Mughals: Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. It traces the history of “Mughlai food”, from the sparse table of Babur, influenced by his Central Asian roots and nomadic life, to Akbar’s fondness for vegetarian food and Rajasthani influences on his table, to the finesse of Jehangir and Shah Jahan’s dining when Iranian influences (the use of rich nuts, for instance) found their way into the royal kitchen because ofthe Persian empresses. The book also gives you genuine Mughal recipes. But even if you don’t care very much (like me) about trying these out, it is a marvellous read nevertheless.
But your education on Indian cuisine(s) is incomplete if you don’t get acquainted with K T Achaya. A nutritionist and an authority on Indian food, Achaya, who died in 2002, researched in areas of oilseeds, processed foods and nutrition. Yet, it was with his landmark works, Indian Food: A Historical Companion (OUP) and A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food by the same publisher, that he gained the most renown and respect. More than a decade later, no other work has even come close to his scholarly ones that examine links between civilisations through food and the cultural and religious nuances involved in the business of feasting, fasting and other forms of ceremonial eating.
Now, OUP has coalesced both the classics into a single new format: The Illustrated Foods of India. It looks like a (comprehensive) dictionary to have at your bedside. But as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover — or its illustrations. If you are going to buy one book on Indian food this year — and haven’t made your acquaintance with Achaya yet — bring this home at once.
Achaya’s research draws from some of the oldest literature in the country: Sanskrit, Pali and Tamil texts as well as sources like the Ain-i-Akbari (which gives actual recipes from Akbar’s kitchens) and colonial texts. A random sampling can take you through the genesis of anything like the Indian cigar (“...described by Sushrutha. A reed was smeared with sandalwood paste containing ground spices like nutmeg and cinnamon...”) to deer (“Vension seems to have had a special place in Indian perception. Charaka extols jangalvasa and its sauce as nourishing… The Vishnu Purana recommends its use in a shraddha ceremony. Xuan Zang lists it among the permitted meats… and an Assamese work, Kamampa Yatra, notes that it is permitted for the upper classes…”).
It traces the origins of the halwa (an Arabic word) from a Turkish confection to the pasty Indian versions as easily as it gives you the origins of the kebab: “Roasting marinated meat on spits while basting with fat is described in both Sanskrit and Tamil literature.”
Above all, if you ever needed a book to demolish notions of cultural “purity” and insularity, here is one. If Indian food has been linked with “chilli”, at least in the Western mind, we are reminded how much of a fallacy that is. There is no mention of chilli in Indian literature till the 16th century and even Ain-i-Akbari’s 50-odd recipes record just pepper to achieve pungency. It was only when pepper reached the New World that “the compliment was reversed” — so much for Kashmiri lal mirch or Bombay chilli. Then, there are other “foreign” influences within Indian “pure veg”. Methi or fenugreek is of Greek origin, groundnuts came in as recently as 1850 and guavas belong to Peru.
Finally, if food can show up ideals as “unity in diversity”, try this: Seviyan on Id, sure. But the thicker and shorter vermicelli made from wheat has been around for longer: Used to make payasam, “a drier sweet, fried in ghee”, a Parsi delicacy, and is also used to make an “uppuma”.
Food and national integration do go together.
