In this piece, we are going to take a re-look at some fairly commonplace food categories. The idea is to question some popularly held notions about who we are. We are going to talk about categories that most north Indian middle-class families, who have gone out to eat even once, will be familiar with. We are talking about the broad divisions of food as classified in the menus that one comes across in restaurants strung across the highways, located near railway stations, main markets, bus terminals, in food plazas cropping up like mushrooms all over the landscape as also in the little restaurants in the shopping centres in our neighbourhoods.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

Pick up any menu and you will find that the food served by the establishment is divided into the following categories: Indian, South Indian, Mughlai and Chinese. These four categories are followed by beverages, bread and desserts. Some more classy menus begin with starters and beverages and end with desserts.

Let us begin with the basics and ask the first question that none of do as we go through the listings. What is this division, is South India not part of India, is their food not Indian food and what in heaven’s name is this strange bird called Mughlai? If it is an English word then it should be Mughal Food and if it is taken from the way it is used in the Persian and Urdu/ Hindi tradition then it should be Mughalia.

Is Mughal Food not something that developed in India? It is most certainly an Indian creation. It has, no doubt, drawn from Persian and Afghan and Tajik and Uzbek and Turk culinary traditions, but it is strictly an Indian creation. In Turkey, in Uzbekistan in Tajikistan, in Iran and Afghanistan, they do not eat these heavily spiced, dripping in oil or ghee kind of preparations. They do not have the mind-boggling variety of bread that we have. Without a shadow of a doubt, Mughalia food is our unique contribution to fine dining. And why Mughalia food has been made an outcast, is the question that we should be asking.

Let us return to the tens of thousands of menus and thousands of hoardings that adorn these eating joints shouting, Indian, South Indian, Mughlai and Chinese. These are not categories of food, these are proclamations of our collective myopia. And when we use the collective ‘we’ here, the reference is to those who think that it is they who define India. What they eat is Indian Food, the rest is South Indian, (in conversations they describe it as Madrasi Food), Mughlai or Chinese. As we go along you will see how short-sighted, downright jingoist and utterly lacking in sensitivity are these overarching categories.

Let us take a look at what is on offer under the category Indian? You will realise that this category lists no meat or egg preparation. Have you ever wondered at this? If Indians don’t eat meat then who is consuming the truckloads of chicken that one sees on every road across north India, from Jalandhar to Jhumri Telaiya? And are only foreigners buying meat from the thousands of meat shops that one finds doing brisk business?

Try asking the management this question, some give you sheepish looks but most are rather blasé about it and tell you in a rather matter of fact tone that Indian means vegetarian. Does it really?

Go back to the menu, look carefully for vegetables, the blessed list is full of potatoes, paneer, mushroom and two kinds of dal. The only vegetables that they have on offer are matar with paneer or aaloo, or simla mirch with aaloo. Some offer baigan ka bharta, palak paneer or aaloo gobhi, but most, however, have this abomination from hell described as mixed vegetables consisting, in all probability, of left-overs from green salads tossed together and fried with some chillies, onions, ginger-garlic paste and salt.

Where is the karela, tinda, sitaphal, bhindi, turai, methi, bathua, chaulai, petha, sem, chichenda, hara lobia, arvi, ratalu, kaseru, kachalu, zaminqand, shaljam, gajar, muli, and chuqanddar. Where, in other words, are the vegetables that seem to define Indian food?

If Indian actually means vegetarian, why don’t they serve vegetarian dishes? Why do they serve potato, which is a stem; paneer, which is split milk, and mushroom, which is a fungus, in the name of vegetables? The worst part of the story is that none of the favourites of the so-called “Indian” menus, like potatoes, tomatoes, peas, cabbage, cauliflower and simla mirch are things that have an Indian origin. All these ‘veggies’ are either from South America introduced by the Portuguese, who also introduced paneer to us, or came from Europe through the French and the British.

We will return to this theme next fortnight, but we leave you here with one thought: Those who do not eat meat are known as vegetarians, but those who are called non-vegetarians also eat vegetables along with meats. Shouldn’t we then categorise food as ‘With Meat’ and ‘Meat-Less’ instead of Vegetarian and Non-vegetarian?

The author is a historian