Why the Mughlai Empire is giving way to regional Muslim cuisines

Mughal cuisine has been so debased by its popularity and later additions of masala and grease that it is not surprising other culinary traditions that sprang up in geographical proximity tend to consciously disassociate themselves from it now. The broadly ‘Awadhi’ cuisines of Lucknow, Faizabad and Mahmudabad, not to mention Rampur and Jaunpur, take great pains to separate their heritage from it and emphasise other linkages, from Central Asia to Persia to Yemen. The nawabs, rajas and taluqdars who survived the decline of the Mughal empire and forged advantageous ties the rising East India Company in the late 18th century—only to oppose its final power grab in the mid-19th—left behind a legacy that is identifiably different what is considered Mughlai today. And India’s palate becomes more inquisitive and appreciative, the timing is just right for all expressions of Muslim micro-culinary traditions to showcase their food. A week ago in Kolkata, I tasted a light-as-air, aromatic yakhni pulao and chicken chaanp made by Manzilat Fatima, a direct descendant of the epicure last Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah. Then a few days later in the same city, Sima Ahmed’s elegant cuisine provided another angle to north India’s “we-are-not-Mughlai” culinary legacy with dishes that harked back instead to the Yemeni roots of her noble Awadhi forebears including a superb pulao encased in lamb caul fat. Both insist their mutton-rice creations are not “biryani”, whose public recall and renown is now in inverse proportion to its authenticity. Curiously, both live and cook in Kolkata, whose own beloved derivatives of Awadhi food include a dish ironically named biryani. The simple explanation—not always accepted—is that biryani was the hearty common people’s dish whereas delicate pulaos were created and cooked exclusively for Awadh’s refined royalty and nobility. There are also some puzzling omissions and exclusions. Kolkata’s prized rezala cannot be traced back to anything similar in the Muslim cuisines elsewhere. Bhopal’s rezala has a thick gravy with fresh coriander and Dhaka’s has a heavier Mughlai touch. Lucknow’s two most famous mutton kebabs—kakori and gilawati or galauti—have no identifiable descendants in Kolkata. Moreover, the two regions’ haleem and pasanda have little in common except their names. These contrasts merely add to the complexity of north Indian Muslim cuisine that was shaped as much by conquest as circumstance, by prosperity as much as adversity. This is true of other kingdoms that came up in the turbulent Gangetic plain and downstream right up to Murshidabad and Dhaka. As the Mughals writ after the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 rarely extended beyond Delhi, the others’ insisting their cuisines are different from Mughlai is understandable. Manzilat’s ancestors’ exile from Awadh (Lucknow) and the evolution of a new royal cuisine in Calcutta—which included potatoes being introduced by the last Nawab Wajid Ali Shah as an exotic addition to pulao, which somehow morphed into the current ‘Kolkata biryani’—is widely recounted and documented. But she represents a throwback to tradition in that her mother hails from Lucknow and had thus reintroduced the original recipes into the family repertoire. That would explain the difference between what Manzilat makes and what is generally served as Kolkata’s supposedly Awadhi-derived cuisine. She serves the more famous galauti as well as the less known majlisi kebab which has the consistency and texture of pulled meat as it is not moulded into any shape. Both have moved on from Lucknow’s royal kitchens to homes and restaurants there, but neither has made it to star status in Kolkata’s popular Muslim eateries. Arguably, Manzilat’s repertoire represents haute cuisine as the bulk of Kolkatans prefer ‘popular’ generic Muslim dishes at the city’s famous outlets such as Shiraz, Arsalan, Zeeshan and hundreds of others. Sima’s cuisine—at least the items she presented at that dinner—shows an even greater departure from ‘Kolkata Awadhi’. That is because Sima harks back to her Arab Yemeni heritage in the dishes from her hometown of Faizabad, the original capital of Awadh. Sima’s Faizabadi Awadhi repast has a twist. Humayun’s first wife Bega Begum (who oversaw the building of his magnificent mausoleum in Delhi) went on Haj and returned with 300 Hadhramauti Yemenis in tow, including erudite sayyids to read the Qur’an at the Emperor’s grave. It is very likely that at least some of their descendants migrated later to Awadh, particularly after Safdar Jang became the second Nawab of Awadh as well as the Wazir of the ailing Mughal Empire. Many Indians of Arab descent today have links with Hadhramaut in south-east Yemen. The ‘Hadhrami’ Arabs as they were (and are) called, also settled in and around Gujarat, Hyderabad and the Malabar coast as the descendants of the men who arrived in the 17th century not only as soldiers but also as muftis and ulemas. Along with African warrior nobles such as Malik Ambar, Yemeni Arab Hadhramis also played a role in Deccan politics as religious advisors. After the British supplanted the Mughals in Delhi, Yemenis retained their importance by virtue of their main city Aden being close to the Mecca and the entrepot for east-west trade for centuries and. No wonder three ‘native chiefs’ of Yemen were even invited for the 1903 Durbar in India, including one from eastern Hadhramaut, the homeland of Sima’s ancestors. Their importance in Awadh as Islamic scholars and scribes ensured their continued primacy there too. This long association led to exchanges between Indian and Yemeni cuisines down the centuries too. Thanks to busy trade routes, cumin, coriander and turmeric became the spice trinity for many Yemeni dishes; their biryani-like lamb ‘mandi’ and ‘zurbian’ are redolent of India. Conversely, two dishes Sima presented in Kolkata last week—Khuroos-e-tursh (chicken) and lamb yakhni pulao—were smoked, a local technique much favoured in Yemeni food even today. Luckily, the differing Awadhi heritages of Manzilat and Sima—and many more exponents of the noble Muslim cuisines of what are now the Indian states of UP, Bihar and Bengal—have appreciative consumers today. People nowadays want to learn about and understand the evolution of culinary traditions as their practitioners moved, most often along with armies and traders. Neither purveyors nor consumers are satisfied with the general label of Mughlai anymore! The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.