We know, however, that Humuyan, Babur’s son and the second Mughal emperor, did employ Hindustani cooks. When he was in Persia he entertained the shah in Indian style, providing Hindustani food at his request. The shah particularly liked the Indian ‘dish of rice with peas’, a version of the ubiquitous khichari.32 Humuyan was in Persia because he had lost the Indian throne to the Afghan ruler of Bengal, Sher Shah. He spent fifteen long years in exile in Afghanistan and Persia, before he mustered enough strength to reclaim the Indian throne for the Mughals in 1555.
On his return, Humuyan brought with him a strong preference for Persian culture and a large number of Persian cooks. These cooks imported into India a Persian cuisine, developed five centuries earlier under the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad. Between the eighth and tenth centuries, when they were at the height of their power, the caliphs had lavished vast sums on their kitchens. Their expenditure on food was matched by their gluttony – Caliph al-Mansur (754–775) is supposed to have died of overeating.33 Cooks from all over the Muslim world – Turkey, Arabia, Egypt – gathered at Baghdad and incorporated their own local dishes into the courtly culinary repertoire. Even Indian cooks arrived from Sind (the southern part of what is now Pakistan) which had been conquered by the Arabs in 713. They were known for their trustworthiness, their ingenuity and their extremely spicy dishes.34
The pièce de résistance of Persian cuisine was pilau. At the caliphs’ court, the pilau that the nomadic shepherds prepared over their campfires was transformed into an exquisite and delicate dish. In Persia, barley and wheat were the staple crops while rice, often imported from India, was relatively expensive and regarded as a luxury. Tavernier remarked in the seventeenth century that the Persians particularly liked the rice that grew south-west of Agra. ‘Its grain is half as small again as that of common rice, and, when it is cooked, snow is not whiter than it is, besides which it smells like musk, and all the nobles of India eat no other. When you wish to make an acceptable present to any one in Persia, you take him a sack of this rice.’35 When rice was eaten in Persia, it was therefore prepared as the centrepiece of the meal rather than as a side dish.36
The Persians judged the quality of a pilau by the rice, which was supposed to swell up completely, but without becoming sticky and forming clumps. A good pilau was also highly aromatic, filling the room with the delicate scent of its spices. Their cooks developed numerous variations: fruit pilaus, turmeric and saffron ones, chicken pilaus for special occasions; some varied by the addition of onion and garlic, or with raisins and almonds, and others varied by the colour of the rice. The Persians would soak the rice in salted water for many hours to ensure that, when it was cooked, the grains were gleaming white, providing a striking contrast to coloured grains which ranged from coal black to yellow, blue, green and red.37 All, as John Fryer, a seventeenth-century East India Company surgeon, scornfully put it, so that ‘you may know their Cooks are wittie’.38 An echo of their wit lives on in the stray grains of pink and green rice mixed into what Indian restaurants today call pilau rice. From Persia, pilau spread throughout the Muslim world. In Turkey it was called pilav; in Spain, with the addition of seafood and an emphasis on saffron, it became paella; in Italy, butter transformed it into risotto.39 In India, where Persian and central Asian culture fused with that of Hindustan, pilau was to undergo yet another transformation in the kitchens of the next Mughal emperor.
Akbar, the third Mughal emperor (1555–1605), was the first to feel at home in India. Unlike his grandfather, Babur, he found the manners and customs of the Indian people pleasing. Rather than continually looking over his shoulder towards his lost homeland in central Asia, he focused on consolidating Mughal rule over Hindustan. In order to achieve this, Akbar implemented a policy of inclusiveness which sought to integrate his Indian subjects rather than simply impose Muslim rule upon them. Central Asians and Persians dominated the government, as they had done under Babur and Humuyan, but Akbar greatly increased the number of Indian ministers. He abolished the jiyza, a discriminatory tax on non-Muslims, and the Rajasthani princesses he married were allowed to worship their own gods behind the walls of the harem. He even joined his Indian wives in celebrating their religious festivals, such as Diwali. While Babur strengthened India’s cultural links with central Asia and Humuyun introduced Persian influences, Akbar ensured that the two were melded together with Hindustani culture to create a Mughlai culture which was a synthesis of all three. At his court, Sanskrit epics such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana were translated into Persian. The poet laureate was an Indian, and the Rajasthani musician Tansen entertained the emperor after dinner. In Akbar’s atelier the Persian artist Abus Samad, whom Humuyan had brought to India from Persia, trained over one hundred Indian painters in the art of Persian miniatures. The geometric designs of the Persians merged with the bright, vigorous northern Indian painting style to produce an elegant Mughlai school of miniature painting.40
The same process of synthesis went on in the kitchens. Here, the delicately flavoured Persian pilau met the pungent and spicy rice dishes of Hindustan to create the classic Mughlai dish, biryani. One of the most distinctive Persian culinary techniques was to marinate meat in curds (yogurt). For biryani, onions, garlic, almonds and spices were added to the curds, to make a thick paste which coated the meat. Once it had marinated, the meat was briefly fried, before being transferred to a pot. Then, following the cooking technique for pilau, partially cooked rice was heaped over the meat. Saffron soaked in milk was poured over the rice to give it colour and aroma, and the whole dish was covered tightly and cooked slowly, with hot coals on the lid and around the bottom of the pot, just as with pilau. The resultant biryani was a much spicier Indian version of the Persian pilau. Nowadays, it is a favourite dish at Indian wedding celebrations.
In the kitchens of Akbar’s court, the chefs were expected to be able to serve up a meal of a hundred dishes within an hour. This army of cooks came from all over the Islamic world and northern India.41 Each brought with him his own regional techniques and recipes. The cooks learned from each other and out of this vibrant synthesis of culinary styles, emerged a core repertoire of dishes which constituted a new Mughlai cuisine. Our information about Akbar’s kitchen comes from the Ain-i-Akbari, an extraordinary book written by the courtier known as Abu’l Fazl. It is a gazetteer of the Mughal Empire, detailing every aspect of Akbar’s government. Among the intricate expositions of the workings of land revenue and bureaucracy is a fascinating chapter devoted to the imperial kitchen. In it Abu’l Fazl provides a list of recipes for some of the most common dishes, which show that the Mughal cooks relied heavily on rice, gram (legumes such as lentils and chickpeas), crushed wheat and sugar. Supplies of these staples were increased by improvements in agriculture. Under the Mughals the amount of cultivated land was extended. Reservoirs were cleaned, new wells were dug and irrigation systems were improved. Sugar production rose and many areas were now able to harvest two crops of grain a year. A French visitor to Delhi in the seventeenth century described how the shops were stacked high with ‘pots of oil or butter, piles of baskets filled with rice, barley, chickpeas, wheat, and an endless variety of other grain and pulse, the ordinary aliment not only of the Hindoos, who never eat meat, but of the lower class of Muhammedans, and a considerable portion of the military.’42
The Persian and central Asian influence on Mughlai cuisine is evident in the Ain-i-Akbari recipes. They called for large quantities of saffron and asafoetida, favourite Persian flavourings, and the Mughals cultivated these plants in India to provide their cooks with a ready supply. Hing (the Indian name for asafoetida) became popular with the Indian vegetarian population. When it was cooked in oil it took on a garlicky flavour which made it a good substitute for onions and garlic which were avoided by devout Hindus. Asafoetida was also known for its digestive properties and was therefore compatible with the vegetarian staples of pulses and beans which are difficult to digest. European visitors to Mughal India complained that the Indians ate
so much hing that it made them smell ‘odiously’.43
Many of the recipes, like the one for zard birinj, used large quantities of raisins and pistachios. Combinations of meat and dried fruit were common in Persian dishes. Cartloads of sultanas, dried apricots, figs and almonds were imported into India along the new roads which were constructed to facilitate trade throughout northern India, central Asia and Persia. Indeed, the development of Mughlai cuisine was sustained by the availability of a wide variety of new and imported ingredients, such as ducks and green vegetables from Kashmir.
Recipe for zard birinj from the Ain-i-Akbari by Akbar’s courtier Abu’l Fazl.
10 seers of rice; 5 seers of sugar-candy; 3½ seers of ghee; raisins, almonds and pistachios, ½ seer of each; ¼ seer of salt; ⅛ seer of fresh ginger; 1½ dams saffron, 2½ misqals of cinnamon. This will make four ordinary dishes. Some make this dish with fewer spices, and even without any: and instead of meat and sweets, they prepare it also with meat and salt.fn1
The meat dishes relied heavily on qima (minced meat), a favourite ingredient among Persian cooks. Mincing meat was a good way of dealing with it in hot countries where it tended to be tough because it had to be cooked soon after the animal had been slaughtered. The Muslim roots of many of the dishes can be seen in their heavy-handedness with onions and garlic. Abu’l Fazl gives a recipe for dopiaza, now familiar on British Indian restaurant menus, which calls for two kilograms of onions to ten kilograms of meat. Dopiaza is said to mean ‘twice onions’ in Bengali and the key to the dish lay in the preparation of the onions: one portion was sliced then sautéed, and the other was ground into a fine paste. Thus, although the dish tasted overwhelmingly of onion, it combined two strikingly different textures.44 The quantity of spices in the recipe given by Abu’l Fazl suggests that the Hindustani cooks had made an important contribution to the Mughlai dopiaza. The recipe calls for 125 grams of fresh pepper, twenty-one grams each of cumin, coriander, cardamoms, and cloves, plus an additional forty grams of pepper and a large quantity of salt.
Besides synthesising the different cuisines by creating new dishes, Mughlai cuisine brought together the cookery of central Asia, Persia and Hindustan by combining different dishes from each of these traditions in one meal. In the pantry of the imperial kitchen, bakers made thin chapattis of Hindu provenance as well as the thick wheat breads, stuffed with honey, sugar and almonds, loved by the Persians. Persian cooks prepared sugar-coated almonds, pastries and quince jams, while Indian cooks made pickles and chutneys, sweet limes, curds and green vegetables.45 These accompaniments of varied provenance were served with the main dishes to create a Mughlai meal.
Although large quantities of fine food were produced in his kitchens every day, Akbar himself ate very little. For a man who had been a glutton in his youth, as emperor he demonstrated a surprising level of restraint. His friend and faithful courtier, Abu’l Fazl, tells us that Akbar ate only once a day, and then ‘leaves off before he is fully satisfied’. As he grew older Akbar ate less and less and devoted an increasing number of days to fasting. He also developed a distaste for meat and became virtually vegetarian.46 Babur and Humuyan had occasionally renounced meat or alcohol as a sign of the purity of their intent when going into battle, but such levels of renunciation were unusual in a Muslim ruler. Akbar’s asceticism betrayed his growing affinity with the religious sensibilities of his Indian subjects. Every Friday Akbar held religious gatherings when a selection of holy men were invited to discuss religious subjects. These were initially confined to Islamic scholars, but he soon widened the invitations to include Brahmans, Jains, Parsees and even Portuguese Jesuits. To the dismay of the Muslim holy men at his court, it became clear that Akbar was falling under the sway of the Brahmans and Jains. It was rumoured that each night a Brahman priest, suspended on a string cot pulled up to the window of Akbar’s bedchamber, would captivate the emperor with tales of Hindu gods. Akbar, in acknowledgement that his subjects held the cow sacred, renounced beef and forbade the slaughter of cows. He even banned the sale of all meats on certain holy days and advised his subjects to avoid onions and garlic.47 Indeed, Akbar gradually adopted a diet more suitable for a Hindu ascetic than for a Muslim ruler.
The emperor even began to look a little like a Hindu. Rather than cropping his hair short in the Muslim style he wore it long in the fashion of his Indian subjects. He allowed Brahman priests to ‘tie jewelled strings round his wrists by way of blessing and, following his lead, many of the nobles took to wearing rakhi (protection charms)’.48 Akbar’s religious tolerance, his acceptance and interest in Hindustani religion and customs, and his eating habits, did much to make the Mughals into Indian rather than foreign rulers. Both his son Jahangir and his grandson Shahjahan maintained many of Akbar’s concessions, such as the ban on cow slaughter. They also continued to restrict themselves to vegetarian dishes on specified days of the week.49 One particularly Indian habit that all the emperors maintained was to drink only Ganges water.
The Mughals did bring with them to India Persian sherbets of crushed ice mixed with fruit juice but they were drunk between meals. Food was accompanied by plain water. Akbar referred to Ganges water as ‘the water of immortality’, and he insisted on drinking it alone, no matter how far away from the river he was.50 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier observed a string of camels which did nothing but fetch water from the river in order to supply the court. Even when Akbar was in the Punjab, about two hundred miles from the Ganges, the water was sealed in large jars and then transported to the court by a series of runners. Tavernier did not share the emperors’ high opinion of Ganges water. He described how a glass of wine mixed with water drawn from the river ‘caused us some internal disturbance; but our attendants who drank it alone were much more tormented than we were’.51 When it arrived at the court the water was cooled by means of saltpetre. Water in long-necked bottles was placed in another vessel where water mixed with saltpetre had been stirred about until it became cold. When the court was at Lahore the water was cooled with ice, brought by runners from the foothills of the Himalayas.52
The noblemen at the Mughal court formed a large group of adventurous eaters. In their palaces cooks from a wide variety of countries could be found experimenting with new dishes and refining old ones. In their restless search for social mobility, the courtiers did their best to ape and outdo the imperial kitchen. Thus they encouraged and spurred on the invention and discovery of new dishes and delicacies.53 When Asaf Khan entertained Shahjahan he provided ‘European style . . . pastries, cakes, and other sweet confections made by some slaves who had been with the Portuguese at Ugulim’.54 No doubt the khan obtained these novelties in an attempt to demonstrate the inventiveness of his own kitchen.
A description of a Mughlai banquet given by Asaf Khan has been left to us by one of his guests, Edward Terry, chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe. Roe was in India (from 1615 to 1619) as the ambassador of King James I. He had been sent at the instigation of the recently founded British East India Company to plead with Emperor Jahangir to grant the company a royal firman which would regulate their trading rights in India. In competition with the Portuguese and the Dutch, the British were trying to gain control of the valuable East Indian spice trade.
The food was served on a dastarkhwan (tablecloth) around which the three men sat in a triangle. Roe, as the honoured guest, was presented with ten more dishes of food than his host. Terry, as the least important person present, was served with ten less. Nevertheless, fifty silver bowls were placed before him. Terry possessed a curious nature and he tasted a little from each one. He was particularly impressed by the rice which came in a variety of fantastical shades, including green and purple. He observed that Indian cooks were far better at cooking rice than the English, ‘for they boyl the grain so as that is full and plump and tender, but not broken in boyling; they put to it a little green Ginger and Pepper, and Butter, and this is the ordinary way of their dressing it, and so tis very good’.
Not all the food served at the ban
quet would have been unfamiliar to Terry. Medieval European cookery was strongly influenced by Arab food and, like Mughlai cuisine, featured ground almonds, lots of spices and sugar in both sweet and savoury dishes. However, the Hindustani method of preparing meat was novel to Terry. He observed that, rather than eating large joints of boiled, baked or roasted meat, the Indians preferred to cut it into slices or small pieces and then stew it with ‘Onions and Herbs and Roots, and Ginger (which they take there Green out of the earth) and other Spices, with some Butter, which ingredients when as they are well proportioned, make a food that is exceedingly pleasing to all Palates’. This is one of the first European descriptions of what we now think of as curry. Sadly, Terry did not differentiate between the different curries he was served. He was delighted by the sophisticated gastronomic skills of the Mughal cooks, and concluded that although the dinner lasted ‘much longer than we could sit with ease cross leg’d . . . all considered our feast . . . was better than Apicus, that famous Epicure of Rome, with all his witty Gluttony . . . could have made with all the provisions had from Earth and Air, and Sea’.55
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