PakAlumni Worldwide: The Global Social Network
India Loves Pakistan Tandoori Meat
"When Delhi's Press Club organised an evening of Pakistani food and music, flying in chefs from Islamabad, the racks of richly-spiced meat on the grill quickly ran out as hundreds of Indian journalists brought their families, equipped with "tiffin" boxes to take away extra supplies" BBC Report 26 June 2014
The BBC story highlights the fact that the vegetarian India demonstrates its deep love of the exquisite taste of Pakistan's meat dishes whenever the opportunity presents itself. To further illustrate the phenomenon, let me share with my readers how two famous Indians see meat-loving Pakistan:
Sachin Tendulkar:
The senior cricketer...said he gorged on Pakistani food and had piled on a few kilos on his debut tour there. "The first tour of Pakistan was a memorable one. I used to have a heavy breakfast which was keema paratha and then have a glass of lassi and then think of dinner. After practice sessions there was no lunch because it was heavy but also at the same time delicious. I wouldn't think of having lunch or snack in the afternoon. I was only 16 and I was growing," Tendulkar recalled. "It was a phenomenal experience, because when I got back to Mumbai and got on the weighing scale I couldn't believe myself. But whenever we have been to Pakistan, the food has been delicious. It is tasty and I have to be careful for putting on weight," he said.
Source: Press Trust of India November 2, 2012
Hindol Sengupta:
Yes, that's right. The meat. There always, always seems to be meat in every meal, everywhere in Pakistan. Every where you go, everyone you know is eating meat. From India, with its profusion of vegetarian food, it seems like a glimpse of the other world. The bazaars of Lahore are full of meat of every type and form and shape and size and in Karachi, I have eaten some of the tastiest rolls ever. For a Bengali committed to his non-vegetarianism, this is paradise regained. Also, the quality of meat always seems better, fresher, fatter, more succulent, more seductive, and somehow more tantalizingly carnal in Pakistan. I have a curious relationship with meat in Pakistan. It always inevitably makes me ill but I cannot seem to stop eating it. From the halimto the payato the nihari, it is always irresistible and sends shock shivers to the body unaccustomed to such rich food. How the Pakistanis eat such food day after day is an eternal mystery but truly you have not eaten well until you have eaten in Lahore!
Source: The Hindu August 7, 2010
Silicon Valley Indians:
I personally see vivid proof of how much Indians love Pakistani food every time I go to Pakistan restaurants serving chicken tikka, seekh kabab, biryani and nihari in Silicon Valley, California. Among the Pakistani restaurants most frequented by Indians are Shalimar, Pakwan and Shan. These restaurants are also very popular with white Americans and East Asians in addition to other ethnic groups including Afghans, Middle Easterners and South Asians.
Carnivorous Pakistanis:
A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature magazine reported that Pakistanis are among the most carnivorous people in the world.
The scientists conducting the study used "trophic levels" to place people in the food chain. The trophic system puts algae which makes its own food at level 1. Rabbits that eat plants are level 2 and foxes that eat herbivores are 3. Cod, which eats other fish, is level four, and top predators, such as polar bears and orcas, are up at 5.5 - the highest on the scale.
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After studying the eating habits of 176 countries, the authors found that average human being is at 2.21 trophic level. It put Pakistanis at 2.4, the same trophic level as Europeans and Americans. China and India are at 2.1 and 2.2 respectively.
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The countries with the highest trophic levels (most carnivorous people) include Mongolia, Sweden and Finland, which have levels of 2.5, and the whole of Western Europe, USA, Australia, Argentina, Sudan, Mauritania, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan, which all have a level of 2.4.
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also published recent report on the subject of meat consumption. It found that meat consumption in developing countries is increasing with rising incomes. USDA projects an average 2.4 percent annual increase in developing countries compared with 0.9 percent in developed countries. Per capita poultry meat consumption in developing countries is projected to rise 2.8 percent per year during 2013-22, much faster than that of pork (2.2 percent) and beef (1.9 percent).
Summary:
Although meat consumption in Pakistan is rising, it still remains very low by world standards. At just 18 Kg per person, it's less than half of the world average of 42 Kg per capita meat consumption reported by the FAO.
While Pakistanis are the most carnivorous people among South Asians, their love of meat is spreading to India with its rising middle class incomes. Being mostly vegetarian, neighboring Indians consume only 3.2 Kg of meat per capita, less than one-fifth of Pakistan's 18 Kg. Daal (legumes or pulses) are popular in South Asia as a protein source. Indians consume 11.68 Kg of daal per capita, about twice as much as Pakistan's 6.57 Kg.
India and China with the rising incomes of their billion-plus populations are expected to be the main drivers of the worldwide demand for meat and poultry in the future.
Related Links:
Indians Share Eye-Opening Stories of Pakistan
Pakistan Among Top Meat and Dairy Consuming Nations
Pakistan Leads South Asia in Value Added Agriculture
Livestock and Agribusiness Revolution in Pakistan
Pakistan's Rural Economy Showing Strength
Solving Pakistan's Sugar Crisis
Food, Clothing and Shelter in India and Pakistan
Riaz Haq
Chicken Manchurian
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023892-chicken-manchurian
A stalwart of Pakistani Chinese cooking, chicken Manchurian is immensely popular at Chinese restaurants across South Asia. This recipe comes from attempts at recreating the version served at Hsin Kuang in Lahore, Pakistan, in the late ’90s. At restaurants it’s almost always served on a sizzler platter, the tangy, sweet-and-sour sauce bubbling and thickening on its way to the table. Making it at home doesn’t compromise any of the punchy flavors. Velveting the chicken in egg and cornstarch means it’ll stay tender through the short cooking process; bell pepper and spring onions add freshness and crunch to the otherwise intense flavors from ketchup and chile-garlic sauce.
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Whose Chicken Manchurian is it anyway? Pakistan's or India's?
https://www.wionews.com/entertainment/lifestyle/news-whose-chicken-...
A recently published recipe by The New York Times referred to chicken manchurian as a "stalwart of Pakistani Chinese cooking". The NYT recipe mentions that the dish comes from "attempts at recreating the version served at Hsin Kuang in Lahore, Pakistan, in the late '90s". The recipe mentioned that the dish was almost always served on a sizzler platter.
But was chicken manchurian really invested in Pakistan? There's definitely a dispute. When we follow the recipe, in an attempt to cook it, several media reports call it a Chinese recipe, some call it Indo-Chinese.
A report published in 2017 by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) talks about How chicken manchurian found its place in Indian cuisine. It mentioned that chicken manchurian was apparently created by Nelson Wang, a third-generation Chinese chef born in India. But also admitted that there is little dispute over the origin as it is often difficult to trace the exact origins of a dish.
The SCMP report stated that the dish was believed to have been created in Mumbai by Wang, who was born in Kolkata (then known as Calcutta). The report mentioned that the dish was invented by Wang when he was a chef at the Cricket Club of India, in Mumbai. He even opened his restaurant in 1983 in China Garden and it is now a chain with outlets throughout India and Nepal.
Chicken manchurian is prepared with pieces of chicken coated in a soy sauce mixture and pan-fried until crisp with a thick sauce of ginger, garlic and green chillies. It is then added to a soy sauce gravy and sometimes vinegar and ketchup. It is mostly served with rice or noodles.
The debate may also include the vegetarian version like Gobi manchurian, veg manchurian, and paneer manchurian. So next time, when you gulp a bite of this luscious dish, do think about its origins rather than only enjoying the punchy flavours.
Mar 27, 2023
Riaz Haq
The Amazing Story of How Philly Cheesesteaks Became Huge in Lahore, Pakistan
https://www.phillymag.com/news/2023/04/08/philly-cheesesteaks-lahor...
Our correspondent tracked down the ways immigration patterns and global politics — plus a bit of serendipity — intertwined to make our iconic sandwich a hit in the 13-million-resident megalopolis.
Sometime in the fall of 2021, a man from Philadelphia came to meet Mazhar Hussain, a chef based in Lahore, Pakistan. Hussain was shown a video of a dish he hadn’t seen before: a hearty sandwich, with generous fillings of meat and cheese. The chef was asked if he could replicate it.
“Re-creating anything is never an issue, but I wanted to check if it was going to be popular,” says Hussain, standing in front of Philly’s Steak Sandwich, a small cafe in Lahore’s Johar Town, an area packed with schools, universities and hospitals. “I saw the amount of meat and cheese being put in it and knew instantaneously that it is going to be a hit.”
Hussain has worked at some of the most high-profile restaurants in Lahore — Monal, Tuscany Courtyard, Chaayé Khana and Café Aylanto, among others — covering a wide range of cuisines. His experience at Philly’s Steak Sandwich, though, has been unique. It’s a smaller restaurant than those, he says, and the guests come from all walks of life. The one thing that connects them: “The steak sandwich is extremely popular with everyone.”
Philly’s Steak Sandwich sits on a small highway apart from Johar Town’s main food centers, atop a hair salon. The shop fights for customers with a biryani restaurant across the street and buzzes all evening with motorbikes and cars jammed into the cramped parking spaces. The cheesesteak is especially popular among nearby students, who can enjoy it for PKR 579, or a little over two bucks.
While Philly’s Steak Sandwich offers a range of fast-food options, its specialty, the cheesesteak, comes in three flavors: pepper, jalapeño and fajita. Chef Hussain customized an eight-inch roll for the sandwich, which arrives on a paper plate. Early in the morning, the meat is marinated with local red chili powder and tikka masala spice to prepare for 4 p.m., when the restaurant takes its first orders.
A lot of the cafe’s customers are drive-in families and couples who just order their cheesesteaks from their cars. On a cold Saturday evening in January, Sana Batool, a schoolteacher, sat in her small Suzuki Alto as two chicken and two beef cheesesteaks perfumed the air. Her children love the sandwiches, she said: “This is their weekend treat.”
In the past year, Philly’s Steak Sandwich has been covered widely in both English and Urdu media. The shop’s general manager, Adil Mehmood — it was his relative from Philly who shared the video of the cheesesteak with the shop’s chef — has appeared on television, highlighting plans to expand the franchise to other parts of the 13-million-resident city.
“In my first meeting with the GM, it was decided that we’re going to add our unique spices to the steak sandwich. I believe a major factor behind its growing popularity is this merger of the flavors of Philadelphia and Lahore,” says Hussain.
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Ayesha Sarwar, co-founder of Cooking 101 and a member of Pakistan’s National Culinary Team, believes the cheesesteak has been in the subconscious of people in Pakistani cities due to the widespread consumption of American pop culture. “It popped up in movies, TV shows, and discussions with Americans,” she says. “People in Lahore are increasingly interested in trying new things.”
Some of Sarwar’s extended family members are based in the U.S., and she relies on them to help improve her cooking of American dishes, including the cheese-steak. “I have relatives in Florida, New Jersey and Maryland,” she says. “The wife of my maamu” — her maternal uncle — “is American and follows our Facebook page. After we introduced the cheesesteak course, she asked me: ‘Are you guys really making the cheesesteak in Lahore?’”
Apr 12, 2023
Riaz Haq
Pakistanis' average testosterone level is 635 ng/dl, ranking the 4th highest in the world, after Mongolia (693), Ethiopia (671) and Nigeria (649).
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/testosterone-lev...
https://www.tiktok.com/@aliecompro_clips/video/7394539447229992225?...
Red meat can increase testosterone levels in small amounts because it contains zinc and vitamin D, which are important for testosterone production. However, eating too much meat can have the opposite effect. A 2019 article from nutritionfacts.org claims that a meal high in fat can lower testosterone levels by nearly one-third within hours. Consuming too much meat can also disrupt hormonal balance by increasing estrogen levels.
https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/the-health-hub/food-drink/food/10...
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