Evolution of Eats

(Originally published as part of Woander.)

Reader, you might be leafing through a cookbook or browsing a collection of recipes as you come across this piece. The concept of a cookbook is intriguing, isn't it? Take, for example, a recipe for grilled cheese: a precise set of instructions detailing the ingredients, quantities, and techniques needed to create "the" grilled cheese. Yet, in kitchens around the world, countless variations of making grilled cheese exist, each valid and unique in its own right. This raises a question: when we cement a recipe in writing, particularly in a society that places great value on the written word, what happens to the countless other versions, especially when the reader might not be familiar with the cultural context regarding those 1000s of different versions? But what makes a recipe worth adhering to or makes it a representative of its culture in the first place? Is it "historic"? Is it "traditional"? Is it "authentic"?

What we might think is historically or traditionally "cultural" or "authentic" is not essential to a cultural group but instead is often a product of socio-economic conditions, of the influence of other cultures, borne out of convenience. Indeed, most cultural groups historically would not have had a conception of a traditional dish; it's only as cultures, ethnicities, and nationalities emerge as a source of identity -- often in the context of other identity groups -- that we anthropomorphize the Group and suddenly, the Group has a dish they eat instead a dish they often eat, a garment they wear instead of garments they wear often and a way of life that defines the Group and their identity, rather than vice versa.

The foods often seen as defining cultures, those consumed historically, typically originated from the tables of the ruling classes. These groups had the resources to record and formalize their cuisine, unlike the everyday recipes passed down orally or through practice among common folk. How representative can such a cuisine indeed be of an entire cultural group? Consider the national dish of Pakistan, Nihari, a mutton stew. Interestingly, Nihari did not originate in what is now Pakistan but in the courts of the nobility of Awadh in Lucknow, North India. Much like our national language, Urdu, Nihari was introduced into Pakistan and made the national dish to standardize a country rich with diverse cultures, reflecting the preferences of a new North Indian ruling elite. I enjoy Nihari, but its connection to Pakistan isn't inherent: we (we?) chose to adopt it as our national dish, even before it became popular in our urban centers. A similar narrative holds for other dishes like Biryani or "Mughalai" cuisine in general, which mostly gained popularity in the country post-partition.

There's also an economic dimension to consider. Could an average peasant in Lucknow, operating within a semi-feudal society, have afforded, either in terms of time or money, to cook expensive meats like lamb for hours on end, especially during an era when every major Indian province faced a famine roughly every 20 years? Historically, such dishes were consumed by the nobility or the elite. Only with recent improvements in food quality, availability, and purchasing power have these dishes become popular symbols of South Asian cuisine. It's worth noting that most restaurants serve food that people don't typically eat at home, and so we see dishes considered luxurious becoming commonplace in dining establishments, while simpler foods are found in roadside eateries and homes. It's no wonder that dishes like Nihari and Biryani, far from daily staples but overrepresented at restaurants, have become the go-to "authentic" examples of the cuisine!

How, then, can we uncover accounts of the diets of ordinary people from not so long ago? Written sources are scarce, but one potential source of information is the British Gazettes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These few hundred-page manuals were crafted to provide colonial administrators a concise overview of the regions they governed, typically with one gazetteer per administrative division. These documents are highly specific and localized (and occasionally engage in casual race science). What do these texts reveal about the cuisine of the average person from the Pakistani Punjab, a wheat-bread staple region now recognized for its relatively meat-heavy diet (specifically poultry), especially compared to its Indian counterpart?

Looking at records from the gazetteers from Rawalpindi¹, Multan², and Jhang³ divisions, which together account for nearly 70% of Punjab today, it's evident that wheat was only one of the cereals consumed in the form of chapati or bread. Coarser grains like barley and millet were also common, while maize was particularly favored in the hillier parts of Rawalpindi due to its suitability for rougher soils. In the flatlands of Jhang and Multan, however, wheat, considered a "superior grain," was almost exclusively consumed by wealthier landowners. Interestingly, rice is entirely absent except in certain hilly areas of Rawalpindi, where conditions allowed for its cultivation due to heavier rainfall. Dietary choices appear to have been influenced by factors such as rainfall, drought, and expectations of future yields. Food choices were a matter of convenience, driven by local agricultural conditions. Today, high-fiber, low-carb grains like barley and millet are primarily used as bird feed, and rotis or chapatis are made exclusively from wheat, which is now grown on a mass scale, yielding large harvests.⁴ Conversations with any elder will confirm this diversity of grains. My grandfather still reminisces about the excellent cornbread made in the hillier regions of Bagh; its quality is unsurprising as it was a staple diet there not too long ago. Villagers ate their bread with lentils and vegetables -- whatever they could readily grow -- or just lassi and simple spices when that's all they had. After migrating in 1947, my grandfather's first meal in Pakistan was exactly this: bread and pickles offered by generous villagers who welcomed refugees with whatever little they had.

The gazetteer shows that even among the Muslim majority regions, and even for the rich, meat was absent as part of their cuisine, and when it was eaten, it was usually goat or sheep. This is still true, and despite what might be served in restaurants on a day-to-day basis, most Punjabis still eat a vegetarian diet, with meat being a once or twice-a-week affair and chicken being the most commonly consumed form of meat today in Pakistan. The popularity of chicken is a very recent phenomenon. My father confirms this: in his generation, meat was rarer -- when it was eaten, it was eaten as mutton. Chicken, of which desi (local) breeds were available, was considered a prized luxury (as desi varieties still are today). What changed? The introduction of the broiler chicken. A breed introduced over the last 50 years that matures in a few months, much faster than local varieties. So while keeping a chicken to mature over a year for a few kilograms of meat was unfeasible for most farmers 50 years ago, making them rare for food, the broiler chicken allows the bird to be farmed efficiently on an industrial scale -- often in horrid conditions -- rapidly increasing supply, introducing meat into diets. Better distribution of wealth, with more people owning land due to land redistribution laws in the 70s and 80s and a burgeoning middle class, allows more people to own small-scale chicken farms or afford meat. The demand meets the supply halfway to change the nature of Punjabi cuisine.

Take Churi, a simple sweet dish from Punjab, that evokes the rustic simplicity of home; it's a dish that might remind you of being hand-fed by your mother as a child. Churi is made from just three basic ingredients: roti (bread), sugar (traditionally gur jaggery), and ghee (traditionally clarified butter). The sugar melts into a syrupy, caramelized coating on the hot, fresh roti, blending with the ghee to create a rich yet simple delight. However, it seems that in the Multan and Rawalpindi regions, these ingredients were not widely available to everyone, likely due to the mass production requirements of large sugarcane farms or substantial cattle holdings. Therefore, in the famous Punjabi love epic Heer Ranjha, often referred to as the Romeo and Juliet of Punjab, when Heer, the chief's daughter, feeds churi to her lover, the cattle herder Ranjha, the act transcends a mere symbol of rural simplicity as we would understand it today.⁵ To a listener from the last century, this gesture would have underscored the wealth and social disparity between them!

That is how socio-economic changes, newer varieties of crops or cattle, decreasing wealth disparity, and better farming techniques completely changed what we would consider "traditional" cuisines of a region!

The most popular -- and certainly a traditional -- dish in my hometown is Pothi/Mothi daal Chawal, which consists of red kidney beans served with rice. Known as Rajma or Lobia in other parts of South Asia, these beans are a staple in the lower Himalayan hills. Their popularity stretches from the Hazara region in Pakistan through Jammu, renowned for producing the highest quality beans, into the Indian states of Himachal and Uttarakhand.⁶ Despite being integral to the local cuisine, red kidney beans were originally introduced from modern-day Peru just 400 years ago. Similarly, one of the "authentic" rustic dishes from Punjab is Saag and Makai di roti: leafy greens (such as mustard or spinach) and cornbread. Like the beans, cornbread is another introduction to the New World. What would South Asian cuisine be without chilis or tomatoes, both of which are also New World introductions?

And, of course, the potato. No other food controversy is more polarizing in South Asia than whether biriyani should be eaten with or without potatoes. Biriyani, as previously mentioned, originated in the Mughal kitchens of provincial capitals and centers of nobility like Delhi, Hyderabad, and Lucknow. In 1856, when the Nawab of Awadh was exiled by the British from his capital in Lucknow to Kolkata, it is said that due to his new financial constraints, his cooks had to economize his biriyani by substituting meat with more affordable ingredients such as potatoes and eggs. Kolkata, being the British colonial capital and a major port town, would certainly have been one of the first places in South Asia to be introduced to potatoes. Isn't it unsurprising that biriyanis typically eaten in the inland cities of old royalty, such as Lahore, Lucknow, and Hyderabad, are enjoyed without potatoes, whereas those consumed in British port towns like Karachi and Kolkata are served with potatoes? Once again, it appears that your food preference, which is so often transformed into a marker of polarising consumption identity, stems from economics and availability.

I recently watched a YouTube short that described how consuming chai using Indian recipes was a form of indigenous resistance to British colonial rule and how it has become part of the Indian identity. This intrigued me because, not so long ago, tea, introduced by the British to India primarily for cultivation and export to Britain, was seen as a symbol of British colonial rule! The Punjabi humorist Anwar Masood penned a satirical poem featuring a dialogue between Chai and Lassi, explicitly illustrating it as a conversation between indigenous and imported values represented through these two beverages. So, is chai an integral part of the Indian identity, or is it something foreign and colonial? I believe both interpretations are valid, as cultures are dynamic and ever-evolving. Or perhaps the typical South Asian chai drinker has rarely ever considered themselves a footsoldier in some epic civilizational beverage battle; sometimes, consumption is just consumption. When groups become self-aware, cultures morph into identities -- and where's the fun in that?

Does the fact that beef noodle soup became popular in Taiwan after the post-civil war movement of the Kuomintang to the island make it any less authentic as a Taiwanese dish? Similarly, would Korean army stew have become a staple without the American military presence during a period of immense economic hardship during and following the Korean War? Reflecting on Argentinian cuisine, would its characteristic emphasis on meat be the same if Buenos Aires were not located next to vast expanses ideal for cattle farming? How would Argentinian cuisine have developed without the influence of Spanish and Native influenced criolla and later Italian porteno culinary traditions? Are any of these foods, imported, evolved, and innovated over time due to circumstances, any less traditional or authentic? Or rather, are they not an integral part of the stories of these peoples, woven into the fabric of their cultural identities?

It may seem contradictory to say this in a cookbook, but there's nothing sacred about a recipe. Rather than the consumption of a recipe defining a cultural group, it is the cultural group that, through its history and conditions, shapes how recipes evolve. As long as you respect where a dish originated, its legacy, and its evolution, feel free to adapt recipes as you wish, whether out of convenience, for experimentation, or simply because you can.

Footnotes

1. Gazetteers Of The Rawalpindi District 1893-94 (Publication date 1895). Archive.org ↩

2. Multan District Gazette, by Punjab Govt. (Publication date 1926). Archive.org ↩

3. Gazetteer Of The Jhang District, by Punjab Government (Publication date 1883). Archive.org ↩

4. Barley and Millet are regaining popularity among the health-conscious. ↩

5. Fun Food Fact: Heer Ranjha by Waris Shah (1722-1798) is also the first record we have of a reference to a certain fragrant long-grain variety of rice by its modern name: Basmati. ↩

6. While popular across the sub-Himalayan belt, they are uncommon in the plains, probably because they're harder to cultivate there. ↩