India has always been a melting pot of cultures. Nowhere is this more evident than in the food we eat. There have always been fierce debates about whether a particular dish is Indian or Indian enough, or if some dish somewhere else in the world is a derivative of something originally Indian, and so on. But we find these discourses quite irrelevant and, ultimately, unimportant. Food, like language, customs, and music, has always traveled. And like all good things, it cannot be contained in one box with just one label. Food is culture. And culture always evolves.
Mughlai cuisine is an exquisite example of this synthesis of cultures. It was during Akbar’s inclusive reign that the delicately flavoured Persian pilau met India’s spicy, fiery rice preparations to result in what is modern India’s favourite dish – biriyani. Akbar’s kitchens were also much like the biriyani—cooks from Persia and northern India worked together to create some exquisite dishes that continue to be among the favorites of the region. It is from the gazetteer of Akbar’s reign, Ain-i-Akbari, written by Abu’l Fazl, that we get a glimpse into the royal kitchens and the magic that brewed within. One example of an introduction of a Persian ingredient being so enthusiastically embraced by Hindustani people as to make generations believe that it is very much "Indian" is hing. Vegetarian Hindus took to hing like few other communities did because they could substitute taboo ingredients like onion and garlic with hing.
Dried fruits, a great staple in Persian cooking, also arrived by the cartloads from Persia via the newly constructed roadways from northern India into central Asia and Persia. Sultanas, dried apricots, figs, almonds—all these started becoming staples in Indian cooking.
A recipe indicates that this is a dessert called zard birinj. This continues as a South Asian favorite called zarda. The name Zarda comes from the Persian word "zard," meaning "yellow." A huge favorite during weddings, zarda is quite similar to Sholezard, a traditional Iranian dessert, and Zerde, a traditional Turkish dessert, revealing to us the sweet ties that bind us all. Khoya, candied fruits (murabba), and nuts are an essential part of a zarda. In Mughal times, sweetmeat pieces called "mutanjan" were also added to the dish. Apparently, Shah Jahan was a great fan of the dish. Here is the recipe of zarda’s predecessor, zard birinj, as recorded by Abu’l Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari:
Zard Birinj
- 10 seers* of rice
- 5 seers of sugar candy
- 3 1/2 seers of ghee
- Raisins, almonds, and pistachios, 1 seer of each
- 2 seer of salt
- 5 seer of fresh ginger
- 11 dams^ saffron, 21 misqals of cinnamon.
This will make four ordinary dishes. Some make this dish with fewer spices, and even without any: and instead of without meat and sweets, they prepare it also with meat and salt.
*One seer = about 24 pounds; ^One dam = about 0.75 ounce.
Out went the Mughals, and in came the British. We will of course cover the intricacies and uniqueness of Anglo-Indian cuisine in future pieces, but we will use one example here to demonstrate how Britishness lent itself to Indian food and how Indian food and ingredients changed British food and drink. Examples of this abound, including, famously, kedgeree and mulligatawny soup, and so on and so forth. In this piece, we want to talk about Punch. Punch—that very party staple. You make it in a large bowl, and people ladle it into cups, and the rest is a hazy memory.
Punch, the name of the coktail originates from hindi word Paanch | Unsplash
Popular belief has it that this may be the first ever cocktail. Punch, it is said, originates from the Hindi paanch, for the five classic ingredients: sour (lime or lemon), sugar, spirit (rum, brandy, or arrack), water, and spice (nutmeg). But this theory is considered dubious. Food historian Lizzie Collingham argues that "it is more likely that East Indian merchants picked up their taste for hard liquor mixed with milk, sugar, lime juice, and spices, as well as its name, on the voyage out to India when sailors were handed out a daily allowance of liquor from a cask known as the puncheon." The first written reference of the punch comes in a letter written in 1632 by a Robert Addams, who was stationed in India and worked for the East India Company, as recounted by David Wondrich in his book ‘Punch.’ Whatever may be the origin – and there are more theories – it became a wildly popular drink. It was even a great favorite of Charles Dickens, who regularly made punch for his friends. It traveled across the world, and where arrack was used in India, it came to be replaced by rum and brandy according to which part of the world the British were plundering and drinking in. After falling out of fashion for a time, the punch is all set for a revival. We remember drinking one at the Punch Room, a cocktail bar at the London Edition hotel, which serves only, you guessed it, punch. More recently, we also had one at Slink & Bardot in Worli, which tries to recreate what is more or less the "original" five-ingredient recipe.
Recipe for Milk Punch from the papers of Matthew Campbell, Lieutenant in the Indian Army in the 1820s “Soak the rinds of thirty Limes in two Bottles of arrack for twelve hours— drain off this liquor, add ten bottles of arrack and six of Brandy or Rum, to this add two and half bottles of lime juice, eight nutmegs grated— twelve lb. of moist sugar—eight quarts of new milk boiling and 14 quarts of boiling [water] . . . The whole to be mixed in some large vessel and stirred about for half an hour and when perfectly cool, to be strained thro’ flannel and bottled off."
