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
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...
Mongolia 693
Ethiopia 671
Nigeria 649
Pakistan 635
Egypt 623
Russia 619
Saudi Arabia 605
Poland 595
Kyrgyzstan 595
Sudan 589
Uganda 586
Yemen 577
Iran 564
Philippines 562
Kenya 559
Italy 556
Germany 542
Portugal 537
Sri Lanka 533
Tunisia 532
Iraq 523
South Africa 517
Morocco 505
Vietnam 503
Indonesia 502
Malaysia 492
Belgium 488
Jordan 488
China 480
Myanmar 475
India 474
Qatar 474
Switzerland 472
Ukraine 471
South Korea 459
Turkey 456
Spain 453
Serbia 440
Australia 434
Thailand 433
Palestine 431
New Zealand 428
Bangladesh 423
United States 420
France 420
Finland 418
Sweden 417
Brazil 416
Mexico 412
Uruguay 404
Cuba 403
Canada 402
Israel 395
Romania 394
Lithuania 392
Greece 391
Chile 358
Kazakhstan 356
Latvia 349
Bahrain 346
Slovakia 330
Czech Republic 324
Venezuela 290
Jul 24, 2024
Riaz Haq
How Pakistan fell in love with sushi | Pakistan | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jun/12/how-pakistan-fell-in-l...
By December 1986, this $32m building had another novelty to offer – Fujiyama, a Japanese restaurant at its summit. There had been no advertisements for Fujiyama, and for its first six weeks, the only way to get in was with an invitation; these began to land in the homes and offices of the city’s bankers, businessmen, doctors and other members of Karachi’s elite. By the new year, the restaurant was so busy it had waiting lists. There were now two kinds of people in the city of 6 million: those who had tried sushi and those who had not.
In the late 80s, a Japanese restaurant like Fujiyama was an expensive proposition: foreign chefs had to be hired, staff trained, and ingredients, from wasabi to rice, constantly imported. Sushi – raw fish – in a country where daal roti is a staple and vegetables are often cooked down until they lose their crunch: who would take such a risk?
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Today, you can finish your day of fasting during Ramadan at a sushi buffet or host a wedding reception for a small (by Pakistani standards) gathering of 100 or more at a Japanese restaurant. When restaurants closed during the pandemic, waiters zipped across the city on motorbikes to deliver sushi. In May 2022, the cash-strapped government attempted to impose a ban on the import of “luxury items” to Pakistan – including Norwegian salmon and nori from Dubai – but the finance minister later had to admit that “even though we had the ban … you could still find salmon and sushi in restaurants”.
While much of it may not be good – with gummy rice or chalky, bland wasabi – it’s clear today that Pakistanis want sushi. It is on the menus of fine dining restaurants in hotels, and in the many pan-Asian restaurants that have mushroomed across Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. By the time I encountered “chapli sushi” (a chapli kebab and cucumber maki roll) at a restaurant in Lahore, I wondered: how did we get here?
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Byram poached a Japanese chef, Keni Hara, from a hotel in Dubai, and an interior decorating firm in Bangkok was hired to design the space. There were three teppanyaki counters, and the restaurant was intimate and dimly lit, keeping the city’s harsh sunlight out. A private dining room with curtains offered discretion. Waiters were hired and training commenced at the Avari Towers. “The chef’s wife, who we called Momo, taught us,” recalled Vincent Francis Rodrigues, one of the waiters at the time. “We learned about ojigi – bowing – and how to hold chopsticks, so we could show the guests.” The chopsticks had a little fixture at the top so they were as easy to use as tongs.
The servers had to try the food so they could guide guests. Chef Keni offered sashimi. Some of the waiters refused to eat the raw fish. Rodrigues had never tasted anything like it. His Goan family regularly made prawn curries or fried surmai; white and black pomfret; mackerel and sole. But this? It was at once salty and a little sweet, a soft yet yielding bite that made his eyes water.
Chef Arshad Mehmood, now 47, started his career as a 16-year-old banquet waiter at the Avari. On his first day in the Pakistani banquet kitchens, he was given 40kg of onions to dice. When he was moved to the Fujiyama kitchens, he was carving rosettes with cucumbers and carrots. He saw a pink fish – salmon – for the first time. Why give that up? When Chef Keni insisted he eat tuna sashimi, Mehmood closed his eyes, said a prayer, and put it in his mouth. Mehmood showed me the sketches he made as he learned to plate meals. He matched the Japanese names of dishes to Urdu words to remember them: teriyaki was tarri, the gleam of the sauce like the film of oil skimming a curry.
Jun 12