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Delhi’s Belly

In the third and final piece based on bbchindi.com content marking Delhi’s 100 years as the capital of modern India, BBC Hindi’s Parul Agrawal travels through the streets of Delhi to discover the cuisines that reflect the city’s history.

The great Urdu poet and a resident of the city, Mirza Ghalib, was once asked what he thinks of Delhi. “If the world is body Delhi is its soul...” was his reply. Delhiites proudly own this sentiment — but what is this soul made of? What is its spirit?

Delhi in its true sense is a mini-India, and to experience the multicultural spirit of this city we took the route through its different flavours and cuisines. To play on one of the interpretations of its name, Delhi is a dehleez (Persian for “threshold”) to various tastes and cultures that make up India. From an old deserted city to an enthralling, busy capital, Delhi has seen the aroma of the Mughlai cuisine, the pep of Punjabi food and delicacy of the Anglo-Indian tastes.

Accompanied by food connoisseur and a resident of Delhi for more than 50 years, Pushpesh Pant, we start from Nizamuddin — an area that lies in New Delhi but is actually older than the walled city of Delhi. Once inhabited by the Sufi saint, Hazrat Nizammudin Auliya, Nizammudin is a densely populated area with wonderfully smelling narrow lanes. Today it is famous the world over for its non-vegetarian finesse.

Pushpesh narrates the history of the food culture of this area: “In Delhi, murgh (chicken) makes its appearance under different names — Changezi, Jehangiri, Noorjahani, Shahjahani — and is consumed without anyone being wiser that only the last named spent some time in Delhi and has an intimate connection with the city. Delhi is far more partial to the Turko-Afghan repertoire than with riches imported from the more distant Persia.”

The 19^th century experienced the downfall of the Mughal Empire, and Delhi was a city far from the hustle-bustle of trade activities in India. Dishes such as “Aloo ghost” (potato cooked with meat) were famous as cheaper means to feed meat to a family. Other dishes — for example, “nihari” (an early morning delicacy) and “paaye” (the nutritious goat leg-bone meat) were a delight to eat and were still light on the pockets of the host.

As we stop by at a shop of sparkling utensils made of aluminium, with beautiful carvings and engravings, we are reminded of the royalty that the Mughals owned and left behind.

The food culture of Delhi can actually be divided into four parts, based on the people residing in this city. The food here reflects the tastes created by “Baniyas” (the trading class), “Kayasths” (the accounting class), “Punjabis” (mostly refugees from Pakistan), and “Muslims” (the inhabitants of Delhi).

Our next stop is the old city of Shahjahanabad, now known as the walled city of Delhi. With the Red Fort in the backdrop, people living in this area were closer to the royalty and its culture. Their food habits reflected this proximity.

Anand Tiwari, who happens to be the sixth-generation owner of a shop built in 1857 in the famous Parathe Wali Galli — literally, “the lane of fried bread” — thinks the good old times are gone: “In those times, one paratha (flat bread) cost one Aana, and only two varieties were available - sada (plain) and aloo (potato). Presently, one parantha costs 30 rupees, and there are 22 varieties available. Earlier people were comfortable sitting down on mats, and had paranthas with a glass of water. Nowadays people demand a classy, air conditioned place to sit. Times have changed.”

The history of street food in Delhi dates back to this era as “chaat vendors”, and “mobile food vendors” of Delhi still dominate the lanes of the old city.

New capital – new cuisines

1911 marked a new beginning for Delhi as well as for its culture, food and delicacies. Soon after the Second World War, Delhi was almost converted into a camp for British officers and soldiers. They introduced the Anglo-Indian flavours to the city, so much so that the food culture became a part of the regular menu even at Indian feasts and restaurants.

The Western lifestyle began to seep in and restaurants no longer served food alone. Live music, dance floors and juke boxes were introduced to accompany grilled, roasted, baked cuisines, soufflés and soups.

While the British became an intrinsic part of this city during the 1940s, India was declared independent, and with the brunt of partition Delhi became the most affected city. Thousands of refugees, predominantly Punjabis, took shelter here. Their culture soon started to dominate Delhi and left an indelible mark on almost every aspect of the city.

Refugees introduced Delhi to an altogether new thing which actually was a shock for people initially. Huge tandoors (ovens) were set up outside the refugee camps, and they were welcomed as traditional chapatti-making machines by many.

Punjabi culture and its tandoori magic introduced restaurants known as “dhabas” that gave easy access to home meals outside homes and were also a means of livelihood for the city’s new residents.

Pushpesh Pant speaks about two such vendors: Kundan Lal who started “MotiMahal” in Delhi and is also associated with the birth of ‘butter chicken’, and P. N. Lamba, who is the owner of “Quality” restaurants: “Both started their shops as local vendors in Delhi. They truly symbolise how Delhi and its food gradually got universal recognition.”

By mid-1960s, India had gotten over the trauma of wars with China and Pakistan as well as food shortages. The success of the Green Revolution restored the city’s self-confidence, and Delhi was ready to turn a new gastronomic page. Hippies thronged the city, and youngsters in Delhi’s universities acquired a taste of Tibetan food at TibDhabs on Majnuka Tila — Delhi’s Tibetan “camp”.

Quite similar to what India is witnessing today, a “Price Rise” movement of 1960s brought into existence a lot of cooperative coffee houses which offered a cup of coffee for as low as 75 paisa. The place even offered sandwiches, omelettes and hamburgers — along with some space for intellectual discussions. The first of these coffee houses is still located in Connaught Place. In this age of liberalisation a cup of coffee costs 15 rupees (about US$ 0.30)

THE CITY was rising as an administrative hub, and people from all parts of India flocked to Delhi. As they did so, they brought with them distinct flavours, cultural trends and food habits. The city saw the emergence of Bengali-dominated Chittranjan Parks, Punjabi-dominated Rajendra Nagars and restaurants that cater to foodies irrespective of caste, colour or creed.

The Asian Games of 1980-1981 held in Delhi spurred on hectic activities in different fields including construction of deluxe hotels such as the Maurya and Taj Mansingh. According to Pushpesh, theMaurya employed heritage master-chefs to create ethnic restaurants.

As India’s economic liberalisation hit the doors in the 1990s, the city of politics opened its doors to the world. Delhi was now a hub of opportunities with people from across the world coming to it. The Delhi diet became a global platter as never before.

Today, Afghans can spend evenings at a restaurant in the lanes of Ballimaran in Chandni Chowk serving dishes like “mutton dashi kabab” and “Afghani-naan” which make them feel at home. Meanwhile, at a very different end of the global taste-buds spectrum, a restaurant which started as a small, dingy street shop with an Italian connection, today boasts of traditional Italian kitchen and is yet another example of Delhi’s flourishing multiculturalism.

Mohammad Atiq, owner of a vegetable shop in the posh Green Park area in Delhi, bears testimony to the city’s global appeal: “I have been running this shop for 25 years. Earlier we used to sell just seasonal vegetables. But today zucchini, broccoli, salad leaves, yellow/red capsicums, and mushrooms are in greater demand. We don’t even know what their names mean.

People go abroad and see such vegetables, and they come back and describe them to us. No one wants the local Indian vegetables anymore; it’s the imported vegetables that make money.”

Pushpesh sums up this new face of Delhi: “If Delhi is to be described on the basis of its eating habits, there has been a lot of gluttony and a sort of fusion-confusion in the last two decades. The middle class is emerging rapidly, people’s aptitude towards traditional food has grown, and people are also crazy for global food along with the regional dishes.”

As Delhi is enjoying its global platter, there is a danger that, in this overwhelming crowd of almost every dish under the sun, many authentic, distinct flavours, rare recipes and local tastes are loosing their identity.

Will Delhi’s expanding global palate obscure the taste of some of the unique flavours with which this city once identified? Let’s hope that they stay with the city as it steps into its second century as the capital of India.