When food met freedom...

Freedom for India came at a huge cost and suffering in 1947 but there was a silver lining as we now had a culinary tapestry that was easily the finest in the world, writes Madhulika Dash

Railway cutlet

In retrospect, there is no doubt that Indian independence was stupendously shortchanged. We had come out of 200 years of a capitalist and whimsical style of ruling far poorer than some of the poorest colonies under the British. Our GDP was at a worrisome three percent and total production was only 50 million tonnes. We had lost most of our indigenous crops to the so-called ‘superior version’ of potato, opium, and tea — lands which ironically later were used to dump war spoils and ammunitions. In addition, we had experienced two famines — one in Bihar and another in Bengal, which left a huge dent in the rice bowl of India. Thus, making the midnight of August 14 that year a moment of mixed feelings.

It would take India almost seven decades, and many leaders reaching other countries asking for help (with a begging bowl) to get to a level where we today hold the food card of help. But back then as Jawaharlal Nehru put together a plan to get India back on its feet amidst retaliation from royalty, partition, refugees, and war, few could envision the tunnel’s end. Those who witnessed the making of modern India often call the initial years overwhelming. One rarely knew where to start. But amidst all the dark clouds, there was one silver lining — the Raj had rather unintentionally helped India to develop our modern-day food culture. By the time the British left, India, in its own way, had a culinary tapestry that was easily the finest in the world.

Cosmopolitan cuisine

Just imagine, on the one hand, we had the English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch cuisine and their adaptive dishes like the famous kedgeree, mulligatawny soup, the French duck vadouvan-inspired pork vadouvan and Portuguese canja de galinha, which became the famous Goan gruel called Pez, and Arroz Doce; on the other, was the cuisine that developed because of the culture of intermarriages and conversion. The former cuisine goes by the name of Anglo-Indian, while the latter is East Indian — each with its own particular nuance and fascinating jugalbandi of techniques, influences, and use of ingredients. Both the food cultures in fact laid the foundation for what was called the cosmopolitan cuisine thanks to their presence in not just the royal menus, picnic baskets, army messes, coffee houses, clubs, and restaurants but even in the railway pantry and hotels back then. It was this culture that urban India, under the Raj, adopted and continued to enjoy post-independence too. What made this cosmo food culture get attuned to our taste were two things: first, most of it was curated for the Indian palate, be it the cutlet, the scotch egg turning to the gourmet dimer chop or even the bread butter pudding that eventually joined hands with Hyderabadi Double Ka Meetha and became a cantonment mess staple popularly called Shahi Tukda.

Even the English custard went egg-free with Alfred Bird for India or the hot chocolate. By the time this Olmec drink arrived in India with the Air Raid Patrol created by the British to face the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, it had attained the form that we all know today to be smooth, sweet, and charmingly addictive.

Dining etiquette

Even the dining table concept, complete with its Tudor-style setting, came to India once it had reached its finesse along with the French style, multi-course eating. The much-in-demand French chefs in fact designed not just the menu styles that are still followed in many places including the Rashtrapati Bhavan with all the fine quirkiness of using different flowers to identify guests with different preferences, but also created the table setting that was on par with any royalty globally, and this included the monogrammed show plate. These little nuances are even today a part of fine dining in India.

But the most impactful ritual that the colonist established in India was the five meals, starting with chota hazari (breakfast), burra hazari (lunch), chaa time (afternoon/evening tea), dinner and post-dinner nosh — the idea that became the mainstay of many dancing clubs in the early years and continues to be. Curiously, while India, at least the upper society, did have a concept of meals, the British style eventually would become popular pan-India, not only with their timings but also a prefixed menu. Thus, bread, jam, butter, sandwich, eggs, cold cuts, juices, tea, soup and even an evening snack became a part of our food habits thanks to the official establishment.

Fascinatingly, while most of these inadvertent changes were happening at the affluent level of the society, it did have a ripple effect down below too — specifically for the working middle class that redefined the way dining out, in terms of spaces and food changed. Take, for instance, the pav bhaji that became a mainstay for mill workers who had to work excruciatingly long hours and needed sustenance. That’s when pav bhaji came to the fore, much like the staple breakfast of bun maska and chai. While giving India a bevy of shops serving everything from stews to rolls, the new work culture also created the concept of the rice plate — a cheap yet filling meal for the workers. The new work culture spurned by the Britishers’ need for cotton, tea, and a faster mode to travel (train) eventually proved to be more effective at making Indians accept a few things namely potatoes, tea and chicken. Tea earned its stripe as either nooni chai or the milky chai which we are familiar with today while chicken and chicken egg, both natives of India for a long time, remained the last preference mostly for wellness among kids and elders.

In fact, much like the tea that was voraciously promoted by the Tea Board back in the day with trolleys and free cups, the spud that was considered a superior variety to the Indian-origin sweet potato, was aggressively pushed down the throat of farmers who were given rewards of Rs 100 (even silver medals) to grow it. Dr Benjamin Heyne, a Scottish missionary and naturalist, as part of this initiative, planted a handful of saplings in Bangalore’s Lalbagh Botanical Gardens before moving pan-India to promote the spud that would be an answer to “food scarcity.”

For the love of potatoes

Eventually, it took the Bengal famine for people to turn to potato and wheat as a source of sustenance along with lesser preferred but drought-friendly produce like Kochu shak and googli that survives in puddles in Bengal. Such natural calamities and World War 2 — where soldiers bunked in trenches and had chapatis over the fire that kept them warm — made potato and wheat a pan-India phenomenon. Its subsequent usage in our food left even the British stunned who believed it would be the perfect replacement for rice. Instead, the humble spud joined rice to create a food plate that had not one but two carbs. Today, potatoes are so ingrained in the Indian food tapestry that it is nearly impossible to trace its first strain. A proof of our common love for potatoes and wheat has been the iconic puri bhaji that many historians believe went from the station to the street and somewhere in between became a part of the Bhandara. In fact, it was one of the few defining dishes not only of working-class India but also of our street food that continued to define the last few years of colonial India, and then Independent India that in the latter years was curated by the immigrating communities — be it the Bangla cooks who set up not just the Khao Gali but also the iconic pice hotels in Bengal; the Parsee’s for the dairy, ice cream and restaurants with quick meals, the Chinese who set up shop at Tangra and then conquered the rest of India; Sindhis who turned the R&R cantonment area of Ulhasnagar into one of the buzzing trade and eating hubs too; the last bit in this was, of course, the Tibetans who came with the Dalai Lama and established the famous Majnu Ka Tila — a place that gave us a taste of thupka and momos. India gave back to the world in terms of curries, the bunny chow and the most famous, House of Lords’ favourite privy, Chicken tikka. We agree that the events that designed the modern food lingo were veneer thin compared to the real issue at hand, and yet over the years, this eclectic food culture with its multi-hued layers has been instrumental in making India one of the lucrative markets for brands globally — and in some way aiding the economy too.

(The author is a seasoned food columnist and curator of experiential dining experiences, pop-ups and retreats for chefs.)