India Loves Pakistan Tandoori Meat

[Riaz Haq]

"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.

Trophic Levels Map Source: Nature Magazine

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.

Source: Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences

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:

Haq's Musings

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 

Is India a Nutritional Weakling?

India Tops World Hunger Charts

[Riaz Haq]

#Halal #food was scarce in #SanFrancisco Bay Area. Now there are burgers, pizza and birriani. Lisa Ahmad’s Mirchi Cafe shows “beauty of Pakistan” & offers “food that looks like American food but has the flavor of Pakistan”#Pakistan SFChronicle.com



https://www.sfchronicle.com/restaurants/article/Halal-food-used-to-...


When Abbas Mohamed moved to Dublin as a teenager, there were barely any halal restaurants he and his family would visit. There were a few in San Francisco and some more dotted around the bay, but options were limited, both in their number as well as in the range of cuisines they offered, such as the Indo-Pakistani restaurant Shalimar in San Francisco or the halal Chinese restaurant Darda in Milpitas.

Fifteen years later, the situation is completely different — in part thanks to a growing community Mohamed launched in 2018 called Bay Area Halal Foodies. Congregating on Facebook, the group is introducing what could be the country’s first halal restaurant week, running in the Bay Area from Dec. 9 to 13. The event is a way for the community to share news about halal food businesses, rate restaurants and promote their own food ventures. When organizing the restaurant week, which promotes discounts and other offers at participating businesses, Mohamed counted more than 100 Bay Area halal restaurants.

“These are just the ones we know about. We’re still discovering new ones every day,” he said.

Halal restaurants serve meat that was slaughtered according to Islamic tradition. There are different opinions on how these traditions and rules are interpreted, but one of the rules in the group is to not argue about standards. The group was born out of necessity during Ramadan, Mohamed said, when many members of the Bay Area’s Muslim community wanted to know which restaurants were open late — places where they could break the fast from sunset until sunrise, when fasting starts again.

“Who’s open at 4 in the morning? No other person in their sane mind is asking that question,” Mohamed said.

It took until 2020 and the pandemic for the group to really take off: In January, it had 1,000 members and has since grown to 8,000.


“Not only were people looking for dining options, or reasons to leave the house,” he said, “a lot of home cooks are starting their businesses and promoting it on there, too.”

In the group, supply and demand is visible in real time, and prospective chefs and food businesses can gauge interest in their ideas and their offer. A few months ago, for example, a member asked the group if there would be a demand for halal smoked brisket, and after a sizable number of people on the group showed their interest, she started her new venture called Off the Menu Halal based out of a home kitchen in Cupertino.


Mohamed also notes that four places specializing in halal birria tacos have opened in the past few months.

Innovations like that show the evolution of the Bay Area’s halal food scene: Restaurants used to opt for more traditional menus, replicating the taste of the home countries. One of the first restaurants to go a different route and fuse halal practices with American food culture is Mirchi Cafe with its two locations in Fremont and Dublin. Run by Lisa Ahmad, an Italian American chef and convert to Islam, the restaurant’s menu signifies the power of food as a melting pot of cultures.

Ahmad grew up in a family of Italian restaurant owners, and later attended San Francisco’s now closed California Culinary Academy before starting a series of food businesses. She finally settled on Mirchi Cafe in 2004, where she combines the food of her childhood with the Pakistani culture and cuisine of her husband. The menu features creations such as Punjabi burgers made with ground chicken with onions, chiles and house-made masala, fries with masala mix, and pizza with a chicken tikka topping.

[Riaz Haq]

Like in other countries, culinary cultures fall along economic and social class lines in Pakistan. While the lower classes go to the cheap Pakistani restaurants and khokhas—roadside eateries, serving oily, spicy dishes, the middle and upper classes dine at more fashionable, pricey and exclusive places. The elite prefers a variety of Chinese, Thai, Italian, Mediterranean and American type high quality grill and steak houses. Major cities in Pakistan have very rapidly embraced a globalized, cosmopolitan food culture, offering a rich variety of cuisines.

https://www.arabnews.pk/node/1805416

We never thought the world would change so quickly with the globalization of markets, technologies, communications and intermixing of world cultures. Theoretically, the whole world is open for competition but what is actually sold and bought in the food industry has followed the familiar patterns of global domination. The power and influence of American popular culture, which besides music, film and sports, is reflected in fast-food chains, symbolizes hegemony. It means consumers have accepted everything of their own free will. There is a very broad body of people from every class and walk of life all over the world that wear jeans, t-shirts, and stand in queues to get a slice of pizza or a burger at outlets replicating American design, American colors and uniforms behind the counters.
Pakistan’s national cuisine is as varied as in any country, representing many regional, local and traditional dishes. However, the effects of commercialization and food chain culture can also be seen in the opening of specific food outlets in different cities. I believe it is one of the positive gains of global food chains opening up here. The other is the employment of young women as waiters and cash-register workers in at least three major cities—Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.


Interestingly, local food businesses have very quickly adapted to the changing tastes of Pakistanis by offering their own brands of pizza, burgers and fried chicken. In small and major cities, there are hundreds of local fast-food outlets that offer cheaper, affordable alternatives to expensive foreign brands. In every market of Pakistan, a one man burger cart will hit you in the face displaying the colorful photograph of an American style burger.
Like in other countries, culinary cultures fall along economic and social class lines in Pakistan. While the lower classes go to the cheap Pakistani restaurants and khokhas—roadside eateries, serving oily, spicy dishes, the middle and upper classes dine at more fashionable, pricey and exclusive places. The elite prefers a variety of Chinese, Thai, Italian, Mediterranean and American type high quality grill and steak houses. Major cities in Pakistan have very rapidly embraced a globalized, cosmopolitan food culture, offering a rich variety of cuisines.
Another remarkable shift is reflected in the opening up of coffee houses in major cities. Pakistan is still largely a tea-drinking country with a special taste for doodh-patti—tea brewed in milk and sugar. Many decades back, only the elite would have coffee on their breakfast tables or academics in the offices. It is now becoming a popular hot drink, thanks to motorways and the common belief that high doses of caffeine keep you awake behind the wheel.
Present day urban elite food culture is transforming itself to exclusive clubs on the front yards of shopping centers, on rooftops, and in the special dining rooms of five-star hotels. It is the prohibitive cost of having a cup of coffee or a piece of pastry on a porcelain plate that keeps the common man away--not unusual in elite cultures and elite-driven economies like that of Pakistan.

[Riaz Haq]

World's first Michelin star for a #Pakistani #restaurant. Asim Hussain says his #HongKong eatery only represents one of #Pakistan's many #cuisines , meat-heavy, piquant food of #Punjab . At it doesn't come cheap - at US$100 per head.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/life-culture/worlds-first-michelin...


Like many of Hong Kong's 85,000 strong South Asian population, Mr Hussein's family trace their lineage in the bustling financial hub back generations, when the city was a British colonial outpost.

His great-grandfather arrived during World War One, overseeing mess halls for British soldiers while his Cantonese speaking father owned restaurants in the eighties and nineties.

Mr Hussein, 33, already had some twenty eateries in his group when he decided to embark on his what he described as his most personal and risky project yet, a restaurant serving dishes from Pakistan's Punjab region, the family's ancestral homeland and where he was packed off to boarding school aged six.

---------------------
Those tandoors, frequent trips to Lahore to perfect recipes and a kitchen overseen by head chef Palash Mitra, earned the New Punjab Club a Michelin star just 18 months after it opened its doors.

The success made headlines in Pakistan, a country that is unlikely to see a Michelin guide any time soon and whose chefs have long felt overshadowed by the wider global recognition gained from neighbouring India's regional cuisines.

"It makes us proud, it makes us very happy," Waqar Chattha, who runs one of Islamabad's best-known restaurants, told AFP. "In the restaurant fraternity it's a great achievement. It sort of sets a benchmark for others to achieve as well."

Mr Hussain is keen to note that his restaurant only represents one of Pakistan's many cuisines, the often meat-heavy, piquant food of the Punjab. At it doesn't come cheap - as much as US$100 per head.

"I'm not arrogant or ignorant to say this is the best Pakistani restaurant in the world. There are better Pakistani restaurants than this in Pakistan."
----------------
A great source of pride for HK's Pakistani community

But he says the accolade has still been a "great source of pride" for Hong Kong's 18,000-strong Pakistani community.

"It's bringing a very niche personal story back to life, this culture, this cuisine is sort of unknown outside of Pakistan, outside of Punjab, so in a very small way I think we've shed a positive light on the work, on who we are and where we come from," he explains.

It was the second star achieved by Black Sheep, the restaurant group which was founded six years ago by Mr Hussein and his business partner, veteran Canadian chef Christopher Mark, and has seen rapid success.

But the expansion of Michelin and other western food guides into Asia has not been without controversy.

Critics have often said reviewers tended to over-emphasise western culinary standards, service and tastes.

Daisann McLane is one of those detractors. She describes the Michelin guide's arrival in Bangkok last year as "completely changing the culinary scene there - and not in a good way."

She runs culinary tours to some of the Hong Kong's less glitzy eateries - to hole-in-the-wall dai pai dong food stalls, African and South Asian canteens hidden inside the famously labyrinthine Chungking Mansions and to cha chan teng tea shops famous for their sweet brews and thick slabs of toast.

-----
For some, any recognition of Pakistan's overlooked cuisine is a success story.

Sumayya Usmani said she spent years trying to showcase the distinct flavours of Pakistani cuisine, so heavily influenced by the tumultuous and violent migration sparked by the 1947 partition of India.

When the British-Pakistani chef first pitched her cookbook to publishers on her country's cuisine, many initially balked.

[Riaz Haq]

Bun-kebabs usually include spiced potato patties or shami kebabs with chutney and salad

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210309-pakistans-beloved-poor-man...


Pakistan's beloved 'poor man’s burger'
For Pakistanis, especially Karachiites, the iconic bun-kebab isn’t just a food but an expression of their identity.

Bun-kebabs, widely considered the most beloved Pakistani street food, are thin shami kebab or potato patties in fluffy, milky buns with tangy chutney and crisp vegetables. Optional fried eggs add an extra protein hit. The combination of explosive South Asian flavours, chutney-drenched buns and vegetarian options create a starkly different culinary experience from that of a burger. Ubiquitously available at kiosks and small shops or peddled on pushcarts throughout the country, they are generally sold for between 50 and 120 Pakistani rupees (£0.23-£0.55), depending on the neighbourhood.

Potato bun-kebabs have long been staples at school canteens, and travellers in Pakistan will see women perched on wooden benches feasting on them in crowded shopping plazas. They’re accessible enough to grab for a quick bite, but not so heavy – on the pocket or the stomach – to require serious investment. “You don’t need to book a reservation or plan out your monthly savings to have a really good bun-kebab,” said Riffat Rashid, the food content creator behind Girl Gotta Eat.

For many Pakistanis, bun-kebabs are intertwined with nostalgic family memories, often representing a first experience of eating out or getting takeaway. Osamah Nasir, who founded the Karachi Food Guide in 2013, remembers first eating bun-kebabs during load-shedding (power outages) at his maternal grandmother’s house when he was a child, where nearly a dozen of his cousins spent lazy Sunday afternoons. “In less than 100 Pakistani rupees (£0.46), we’d all be fed,” he said.

Pinpointing a definitive moment in history when bun-kebabs originated is difficult. Some consider them Pakistan’s affordable (and zestier) answer to burgers, especially because of the unique phenomenon of bun-kebab stalls positioned right outside fast-food franchises. Others, like Haji-Adnan, the third-generation owner of an unnamed bun-kebab stall in Burns Road (a food street in Karachi) think they came about in the 1950s. Haji-Adnan believes his grandfather, Haji Abdul Razzak, introduced them as a mess-free, to-go option for bustling workers in the city centre in 1953, before fast food joints started proliferating across Pakistan’s cities.

[Riaz Haq]

Across Borders & Divides in #SouthAsia, ‘Heavenly’ "Rooh Afza" (Soul Refresher) Cools Summer Heat in #Bangladesh, #India and #Pakistan. In Pakistan, the thick, rose-colored syrup — called a sharbat or sherbet — is mixed with milk and crushed almonds. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/india-drink-rooh-afza.h...

Its original recipe, more than a century old, is tucked away in a highly secure, temperature-controlled family archive in India’s capital.

But the sugary summer cooler Rooh Afza, with a poetic name that means “soul refresher” and evokes the narrow alleys of its birthplace of Old Delhi, has long reached across the heated borders of South Asia to quench the thirst of generations.

In Pakistan, the thick, rose-colored syrup — called a sharbat or sherbet and poured from a distinctive long-neck bottle — is mixed with milk and crushed almonds as an offering in religious processions.

In Bangladesh, a new groom often takes a bottle or two as a gift to his in-laws. Movies even invoke it as a metaphor: In one film, the hero tells the heroine that she is beautiful like Rooh Afza.

And in Delhi, where the summer temperatures often exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the city feels like a slow-burning oven, you can find it everywhere.

The chilled drink is served in the plastic goblets of cold-drink vendors using new tricks to compete for customers — how high and how fast they can throw the concentrate from one glass to the next as they mix, how much of it they can drizzle onto the cup’s rim.

The same old taste is also there in new packaging to appeal to a new generation and to new drinkers: in the juice boxes in children’s school bags, in cheap one-time sachets hanging at tobacco stalls frequented by laborers, and in high-end restaurants where it’s whipped into the latest ice cream offering.

As summer heat waves worsen, the drink’s reputation as a natural, fruits-and-herbs cooler that lowers body temperature and boosts energy — four-fifths of it is sugar — means that even a brief interruption in manufacturing results in huge outcries over a shortage.

Behind the drink’s survival, through decades of regional violence and turmoil since its invention, is the ambition of a young herbalist who died early, and the foresight of his wife, the family’s matriarch, to help her young sons turn the beverage into a sustainable business.

The drink brings about $45 million of profit a year in India alone, its manufacturer says, most of it going to a trust that funds schools, universities and clinics.

“It might be that one ingredient or couple of ingredients have changed because of availability, but by and large the formula has remained the same,” said Hamid Ahmed, a member of the fourth generation of the family who runs the expanded food wing of Hamdard Laboratories, which produces the drink.

In the summer of 1907 in Old Delhi, still under British rule, the young herbalist, Hakim Abdul Majid, sought a potion that could help ease many of the complications that come with the country’s unbearable heat — heat strokes, dehydration, diarrhea.

What he discovered, in mixing sugar and extracts from herbs and flowers, was less medicine and more a refreshing sherbet. It was a hit. The bottles, glass then and plastic now, would fly off the shelves of his small medicine store, which he named Hamdard.

[Riaz Haq]

Across Borders & Divides in #SouthAsia, ‘Heavenly’ "Rooh Afza" (Soul Refresher) Cools Summer Heat in #Bangladesh, #India and #Pakistan. In Pakistan, the thick, rose-colored syrup — called a sharbat or sherbet — is mixed with milk and crushed almonds. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/india-drink-rooh-afza.h...

Mr. Majid died 15 years later, at the age of 34. He was survived by his wife, Rabea Begum, and two sons; one was 14, and the other a toddler. Ms. Begum made a decision that turned Hamdard into an enduring force and set a blueprint for keeping it profitable for its welfare efforts at a time when politics would tear the country asunder.

She declared Hamdard a trust, with her and her two young sons as the trustees. The profits would go not to the family but largely to public welfare.

The company’s biggest test came with India’s bloody partition after independence from the British in 1947. The Muslim nation of Pakistan was broken out of India. Millions of people endured an arduous trek, on foot and in packed trains, to get on the right side of the border. Somewhere between one million and two million people died, and families — including Ms. Begum’s — were split up.

Hakim Abdul Hamid, the older son, stayed in India. He became a celebrated academic and oversaw Hamdard India.

Hakim Mohamad Said, the younger son, moved to the newly formed Pakistan. He gave up his role in Hamdard India to start Hamdard Pakistan and produce Rooh Afza there. He rose to become the governor of Pakistan’s Sindh Province but was assassinated in 1998.

When in 1971 Pakistan was also split in half, with Bangladesh emerging as another country, the facilities producing Rooh Afza in those territories formed their own trust: Hamdard Bangladesh.

All three businesses are independent, run by extended members, or friends, of the young herbalist’s family. But what they offer is largely the same taste, with slight variations if the climate in some regions affecting the herbs differently.

The drink sells well during summer, but there is particularly high demand in the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Around the dinner table, or in the bazaars at the end of a day, a glass or two of chilled Rooh Afza — the smack of its sugar and flavors — can inject life.

“During the summer, after a long and hot day of fasting, one becomes more thirsty than hungry,” said Faqir Muhammad, 55, a porter in Karachi, Pakistan. “To break the fast, I directly drink a glass of Rooh Afza after eating a piece of date to gain some energy.”

In Bangladesh, the brand’s marketing goes beyond flavor and refreshments and into the realms of the unlikely and the metaphysical.

“Our experts say Rooh Afza helps Covid-19-infected patients, helps remove their physical and mental weakness,” Amirul Momenin Manik, the deputy director of Hamdard Bangladesh, said without offering any scientific evidence. “Many people in Bangladesh get heavenly feelings when they drink Rooh Afza, because we brand this as a halal drink.”

During a visit to Rooh Afza’s India factory in April, which coincided with Ramadan, workers in full protective gowns churned out 270,000 bottles a day. The sugar, boiled inside huge tanks, was mixed with fruit juices and the distillation of more than a dozen herbs and flowers, including chicory, rose, white water lily, sandalwood and wild mint.

At the loading dock in the back, from dawn to dusk, two trucks at a time were loaded with more than a 1,000 bottles each and sent off to warehouses and markets across India.

Mr. Ahmed — who runs Hamdard’s food division, for which Rooh Afza remains the central product — is trying to broaden a mature brand with offshoots to attract consumers who have moved away from the sherbet in their teenage and young adult years. New products include juice boxes that mix Rooh Afza with fruit juice, a Rooh Afza yogurt drink and a Rooh Afza milkshake.

One survey the company conducted showed that half of Rooh Afza in Indian households was consumed as a flavor in milk, the rest in cold drinks.

“We did our twist of milkshake,” Mr. Ahmed said, “which is Rooh Afza, milk and vanilla.”

The milkshake “has done extremely well,” Mr. Ahmed said. But he is proud of two products in particular. One is a sugar-free version of the original Rooh Afza, 15 years in the making as the company looked for the right substitute for sugar. More than twice the price of the original, it caters to a more affluent segment.

“There is growing market, for runners, athletes, those who watch what they eat and drink,” said Mr. Ahmed, who is himself a runner.

The other product comes from a realization that the original Rooh Afza, with all its sugar and flavor, still has vast untapped potential in India’s huge market. He is targeting those who can’t afford the 750-milliliter bottle, which sells for $2, offering one-time sachets that sell for 15 cents — a strategy that revolutionized the reach of shampoo brands in India.

In vast parts of India, the reality of malnutrition is such that sugar is welcome.

“The people in India in fact want sugar,” Mr. Ahmed said. “It’s only the metros that knows what diabetes is.”

[Riaz Haq]

Beyond #Punjabi Red #Curry: New generation of cooks lifts lid on #India’s diverse #cuisine as regional recipes come out of the shadows. https://news.yahoo.com/generation-cooks-lifts-lid-india-110300876.h... via @YahooNews

By Charukesi Ramadurai


“Cook and See” is just one of several community cookbooks from the decades when modern life began to displace multiple generations of women sharing the kitchen and dispensing wisdom as they prepared family meals. Through these books, the authors offered glimpses into their lives. For example, “Time & Talents Club Recipe Book” (1935) – packed with 2,000 recipes by a variety of contributors, sold as a fundraiser, and republished six times – is still held as the beacon for Parsi cooking, a meat-rich cuisine shaped by influences from Persia, where the community comes from, and from Gujarat, the Indian state they first called home in India. “Rasachandrika” (1943) by Ambabai Samsi featured recipes from the Saraswat Brahmin community on the western Konkan coast.

These cookbooks by homemakers for homemakers were compilations of not only recipes but also practical information – from essential cooking to festival rituals and home remedies for common ailments. Each community in India had, and still has, its own unique ingredients, techniques, recipes, and eating rituals, and these collections ensured this knowledge was passed down through the generations.

Somewhere in the late 1980s, however, Indian cuisine began to be seen and represented globally and nationally as one homogeneous curried red mass. Perhaps it was because the flavors of garlic naan and chicken tikka masala (a dish most Indians have never heard of) traveled well across continents and palates, or perhaps because the Punjabi people successfully managed to showcase their cuisine wherever they went. But the result was that representations of Indian food were cleaved into two neat south and north divisions as far as restaurant cooking was concerned. Regional cuisines and their cookbooks began to be relegated to the kitchens of more discerning home chefs or they were carried abroad by Indian students dreaming of their mother’s culinary creations.

But regional Indian cuisine is being rediscovered and celebrated once again through trendy pop-up brunches and specialty restaurants. More important, a growing number of regional cookbook writers are publishing new cookbooks, complete with easy but largely unknown recipes and glossy photographs highlighting regional spices, legumes, millets, oils, and grains.

“We have begun looking inwards rather than taking our cues from the West on what to eat,” says food writer Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, referring to the recent Indian craze for kale and quinoa. “Now many of us are interested again in local ingredients, and are curious about how other people in our country eat.” And like their predecessors, these books offer glimpses of hidden cultures – culinary and otherwise – to a larger audience.

Take for instance, Lathika George’s book “The Suriani Kitchen” (2009). It is a rich repository of recipes from the small community of Syrian Christians in Kerala, whose cuisine is known for its extensive use of meat and seafood as well as coconut and local spices such as black pepper. It also serves as a cultural explainer – from typical community Christmas rituals to unique utensils, such as mann chatti (mud pots). Similarly, “Five Morsels of Love” by Archana Pidathala (2016) is a compilation of heirloom recipes from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, known for its extensive use of fiery, red chili, and the plethora of dry chutneys and spice powders. The more recent “Pangat, a Feast: Food and Lore from Marathi Kitchens” (2019) by Saee Koranne-Khandekar documents the versatility of cuisine from the various communities within the state of Maharashtra.

[Riaz Haq]

Meet the pair behind one of #SanFrancisco Bay Area's growing #Indian pizza chains. Curry Pizza House opened its first restaurant in #Fremont. Recently, the pair opened their 11th Curry Pizza House in San Ramon. https://www.sfgate.com/food/article/Bay-Area-Indian-pizza-chain-Fre...(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral via @SFGate

The transition from his tech job to running a restaurant wasn’t simple, but Romy says he was willing to learn the ropes. Gursewak, who always had a streak of independence, liked being a truck driver but he also wanted to be a businessman. He eventually put truck driving on hold to study business administration at Chabot College. Fast forward to the present, Gursewak and Romy can be found at one of their store locations most days where they oversee pizza production or prepare the pies themselves.


-----------
Gursewak Gill was visiting his in-laws in Canada when something suddenly clicked. Throughout the trip, pizza was for dinner most nights and Gursewak often found himself sprucing up the pies with a mix of green chilies, ginger, garlic and a blend of Indian spices. Before he knew it, his curiosity would be the stepping stone to his mini-chain Indian pizza empire, Curry Pizza House.

“When we came back [to California] I started experimenting at the house and adding Indian spices ... to make it more flavorful. Curry Pizza House was born from that point,” Gursewak said.

Since 2015, Curry Pizza House has taken up shop throughout the Bay Area with its first outpost in Fremont. Earlier this month, Gursewak and his business partner Gurmail “Romy” Gill (of no relation) opened a store in San Ramon, marking their 11th Curry Pizza House location, with more locations on the way in Texas.


Just before Gursewak and Romy became business partners in 2013, Gursewak founded Bombay Pizza House. After some thought, they deciding to form a restaurant model focused on curries inspired by their family recipes, eventually rebranding to Curry Pizza House.

"We want to be hands-on all the time to make sure that our customers get good quality, spicy food all the time,” Gursewak said.

The restaurants offer pizzas that highlight Indian ingredients, like the chicken tikka pizza and shahi paneer pizza, among others. Romy says there’s something for everyone on the menu because, in addition to the craft curry pizzas, they also sell classic American pies like combination and Hawaiian, with vegan and gluten-free options also on hand.

Curry Pizza House is among a small group of pizzerias slinging Indian pies around the bay. Among one of the most recognizable Indian pizzerias is Zante Pizza & Indian Cuisine, which has been a San Francisco staple since 1986. Zante Pizza, owned by Dalvinder Multani, is widely believed among its devoted customer base to be the first restaurant to create Indian pizza.

“A lot of people ask me: 'Do they have pizza like this in India?'" Multani told Vice in 2015. "No! That was only born here. That happens only here."

While the origins of Indian pizza are open for debate, its immediate success is not. When Gursewak thinks about Indian pizza, he likens it to dipping warm naan into butter chicken or different curry sauces. The depth of flavors Indian pizza delivers were a hit with Bay Area locals, and since the 1980s other local Indian pizzerias have opened up shop such as Golden Gate Indian Cuisine & Pizza in San Francisco and Pizza & Curry in Fremont.


Gursewak and Romy, who are both native to India, moved to Fremont in the mid-1990s, where they attended high school. Their trajectory into the pizza business wasn’t a straight path. Romy had been employed at DELL as a program manager for 15 years, while Gursewak worked at a truck driver with an intent to run a trucking business. Romy admits that he never wanted to be an engineer despite getting his degree in electronic and mechanical engineering at the now shuttered ITT in Hayward.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistani cuisine: Charga Grill in Arlington, #Virginia is a delicious world unto itself. Rotisserie sajji #chicken requires a 16-hour salt brine, followed by a 24-hour marinade, & results in a smoky bird that practically redefines the concept of savory. https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/01/03/charga-restaurant-re...

Asad Chaudry still remembers the first time he tried charga. He had flown to Pakistan for his brother’s wedding in 2012, and as part of the trip, Chaudry’s mom took him to her former neighborhood in Lahore, where they waited, and waited, in line at one of the city’s famous street vendors for a chance to bite into its singular chicken.

Chaudry knew enough about the dish, sometimes spelled chargha, to know how to eat it: He used a piece of naan to tear off a generous hunk of meat from the bird. He garnished the combination with masala onions and then dunked the bite in mint chutney. “When I tried it, I was like, ‘Man, this is amazing,’” he tells me one afternoon over the phone. “I was like, ‘I got to learn how to make it.’”

------------
As you might surmise from the name of their place, Charga Grill specializes in the twice-cooked bird, a rare chance in our parts to taste a dish common to the streets a half-world away. Asad and Iqbal’s storefront would be worth a trip to Arlington for the charga alone (and, please, don’t call it “charga chicken”; the word charga translates to “chicken” in English, so you’re basically mimicking Jimmy Two Times whenever you use the term, much like folks who say “chai tea” or “shrimp scampi”). But Charga Grill is not limited to charga or even to the dishes of the Chaudry family’s native Pakistan.


Charga Grill is an open-ended math equation, an expanding universe, open-source software, pick your favorite metaphor for a business seemingly limited only by the founders’ imagination, which, in this case, appears boundless. You’ll find chicken preparations lifted from countries on at least three continents: sajji (another Pakistani invention), peri-peri (South Africa) and Peruvian (more Lima-style than Peruvian American style). You’ll also find a steak-and-cheese sandwich, an Angus beef burger, a blackened catfish sandwich, a lamb gyro, pulled chicken tacos, rib-eye steak kebabs, chicken tikka kebabs, Nepali curry and even butter chicken.


--------------

Asad is often the first person to greet you from behind the counter at Charga. He’s the type of guy who makes friends easily. He calls me “brother” every time we chat, as if I’ve earned a spiritual honorific just by entering his establishment. Asad is just as generous with samples. He’ll hand you a container loaded with lime-cilantro rice, curried chickpeas, Peruvian arroz chaufa or the saag-like spinach to help you decide how to accessorize your entree. (The correct answer: any or all of them.) He is more than an owner and cook. He’s an emissary to the world of cooking as practiced by Iqbal and Asad Chaudry.

[Riaz Haq]

Number theory: Share of meat eaters in India grew since 2015-16

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/share-of-meat-eaters-in-i...

From the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh in September 2015 to debates on providing eggs in mid-day meals in schools to municipalities ordering that meat shops be shut during Hindu religious festivals, meat eating has consistently courted political controversy. However, if data from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) – it was carried out between 2019 and 2021 – is to be believed, none of this has reduced the preference for meat in Indian diets. In fact, a comparison with NFHS-4 (2015-16) numbers shows that the share of people who eat meat has actually increased. To be sure, NFHS data also has other interesting details about food habits of Indians. Here are four charts which summarise some of the important findings.

------------

Shoaib Daniyal
@ShoaibDaniyal
Expected data. India is a carnivorous nation.

Although to really understand the paradox of high meating eating in India and its radically pro vegetarian politics, a question like "do you think eating meat is wrong" is needed.


https://twitter.com/ShoaibDaniyal/status/1529724728897937408?s=20&a...