What did Shah Jahan have for dinner?

Salma Husain’s first book, published five years ago, was about the sherbets of India. Her second was a transcription of the Alwan-e-Nemat, which featured 101 recipes from the kitchen of Mughal emperor Jahangir. Her third was about a selection of pulaos from the time of Shah Jahan. Clearly, Husain, a Persian scholar who sees herself primarily as a food historian, and the Mughals go back a long way. It’s no surprise, then, that her latest, called The Emperor’s Table: The Art Of Mughal Cuisine, is about the food habits of all the significant emperors, from Babur to Bahadur Shah Zafar. The book intersperses anecdotes with recipes, from between 1483 and 1858.
“What we call Mughlai today is just a combination of masala and oil,” says Husain. “I wanted to show that there was much more to Mughal cooking. There was a subtlety to it that no longer exists.” Sure, we know about the rich history, art, culture and architecture that the Mughals bequeathed to us. But that they also left us a rich culinary legacy — not the greasy mash-up that passes for Mughal fare in Chandni Chowk, Delhi, where Husain lives — is often forgotten. “I want people to know how Mughal food made its entry into India, and how it became ours,” she adds.

Mughal cooking was a riot of colours, fragrances, experiments, table manners and protocol. The emperors usually ate with their queens and concubines, except on festive occasions, when they dined with the nobles and courtiers. The daily meals were usually served by eunuchs, but an elaborate chain of command accompanied the food to the table. The hakim (royal physician) planned the menu, making sure to include medicinally beneficial ingredients. For instance, each grain of rice for the biryani was coated with silver oil, which aided digestion and acted as an aphrodisiac. Gold and silver pellets were also fed to chickens, goats and sheep, so that the medical properties would be passed on to the eater.

Once the menu was decided, a huge and elaborate kitchen staff — numbering at least a few hundred — swung into action. Since about 100 recipes were served at each meal, an assembly line of staff undertook the chopping and cleaning, the washing and grinding. Each dish was prepared by one cook, and they fiercely, well, curried favour with the king. “We talk about rainwater harvesting today, but the Mughals were already doing it,” says Husain. “Food was cooked in rainwater mixed with water brought in from the Ganges, for the best possible taste.”

Adds Husain: “The food really travelled, and each emperor added his own contribution.” Mughal cuisine was shaped by all kinds of influences: Iranian, Afghani, and Persian, (because of the dynasty’s Central Asian roots) mixed in with Kashmiri, Punjabi and a touch of the Deccan. Each gourmand emperor also had his favourites. Babur did not like Indian food when he arrived, preferring the fresh meat and fruits of his native Samarkand. But he loved fish, which he did not get back home. Humayun brought the Iranian influence to the table, while Akbar — thanks to his many alliances — brought the Indian. In fact, Akbar was vegetarian three times a week, and had his own kitchen garden which he nourished with rosewater, so that the vegetables would smell fragrant when cooked. Shah Jahan is credited with adding new spices to the cuisine. Shortly after he shifted his capital from Agra to Shahjahanabad, he was informed that the drinking water in the new city was making his subjects sick.

That’s when the king ordered that food be cooked with more haldi, red chillies, cumin and coriander, for their medicinal properties.
Aurangzeb, said to be the most devout of the emperors, was a vegetarian for most of his life. But Husain chanced upon the Rukat-e-Alamgiri, a book with letters from Aurangzeb to his son, which show that the ruler loved Qubooli, a type of mega-biryani with rice, Bengal gram, died apricot, basil, almond and curd.

For Husain, it helped that the Mughals were prolific documenters. The Emperor’s Table took five years to write, with help from books like the Akbarnama, Ain-i-Akbari and Alwan-e-Nemat, which devoted several chapters to the emperors’ epicurean habits. They had descriptions of not just the vegetables and their prices, but also of how the kitchen moved with the king when he went on wars. 

A self-confessed party-thrower, Husain, 60, says she got interested in food heritage years ago. She has already moved on to her next book, about the food of Awadh. Husain believes her work provides invaluable sociological insight. “Apart from the sophistication of food and living, the culinary habits of the emperors gives a clue to their personalities,” says Husain, “and, by extension, to how they ruled the land.”