Changes in the Indian menu over the ages

IT WAS two years ago that we lost the eminent food scientist Dr. K.T. Achaya. His books
Indian Food, A Historical Companion, The Food Industries of British India, and A Historical
Dictionary of Indian Food (all published by Oxford University Press, India) are a scholarly
fund of the history and development of India cuisine.

Occasional shock
They educate as they enlighten and entertain, and occasionally shock us. For example, he points
out authoritatively that while Dosai and Vadai have a hoary two-thousand-year history in Tamil
country, Idli is a foreign import. The earliest reference to something of a precursor to Idli occurs
in the Kannada writing of Sivakotyacharya in 920 AD, and in the subsequent
Sanskrit Manasollasa (1130 AD). But the three elements of modern Idli making are missing in
these references: use of rice grits along with urad dal, the long fermentation of the mix, and
steaming the batter to fluffiness.
Indeed, the Chinese chronicler Xuang Zang (7th century AD) categorically stated that there
were no steaming vessels in India. Achaya writes that the cooks who accompanied the Hindu
Kings of Indonesia between 800-1200 AD, brought fermentation and steaming methods and
their dish Kedli to South India (Thirai Kadal Odiyum Tinpandam Thedu!)
Happily enough, ancient Indian literature left a lot of information on extant vegetables, pulses,
meat, spices, fruits, cooking methods, and even an occasional recipe or two. The history of
Indian cuisine can be divided into several stages or periods. The earliest period is before 1500
BC or the Vedic period.
The Harappan civilization was known to have rice, barley, wheat, oat, amaranths, jowar,
sesame, mustard, chickpeas, masoor, mung and horsegram (kulti, ulavulu), dates,
pomegranates, and perhaps bananas. Bones of numerous animals attest to meat (and fish)
eating. The large granaries of Mohenjodaro, Harappa and Lothal attest to a sophisticated,
aerated, rodent-free storage practice. But, as of date, no recipe has been discovered so that we
do not know what a typical Indus valley supper menu contained.

Vedic period
We are more fortunate when we turn to the Vedic period (approximately 1700 BC). The Rig
Veda mentions rice, cereals and pulses (masha (urad), mudga (moong) and masura (masoor))
green leafy vegetables (spinach), melons, pumpkins and gourds and in particular lotus stem,
cucumber, bottle-gourd, water chestnut, bitter gourd (karavella), radish, brinjal, some aquatic
plants (avaka, andika), and fruits such as mangoes, oranges and grapes. Spices such as
coriander, turmeric, pepper, cumin, asafoetida, cloves, sesame and mustard were well known,
and at least the first four ones are thought to be Indian in origin. Meat eating was prevalent.
Pigs, boar, deer, bovines and peacocks were eaten, though chicken (which, though originated in
India) was not that desirable. They seem to have been forbidden or discouraged from eating
eggs of any kind and in any manner.
As we move further down to the period of the Ramayana and Mahabharata (probably around
1400 BC, though Valmiki and Vyasa are regarded to have written them around 400 BC), we find
a far richer fare. Lords Rama, Lakshmana and Devi Sita ate a vast menu that contained fruits,
leafy vegetables, rice and meat. Achaya quotes a book stating that Rama and Lakshmana, while
in exile at Dandakaranya, hunted animals for the pot, and that a favourite of Sita was rice
cooked with venison, vegetables and spices (the dish called Mamsabhutadana). Of course, Lord
Rama enjoyed eating the fruit ber (zizyphus) that Sabari tasted and gave him.
Turning to Mahabharata, a graphic description of cooking at a picnic has been provided on
roasting large pieces of meat on spits, cooked with tamarind, pomegranates and spices with
ghee and fragrant leaves. King Yudishtira is said to have fed 10,000 scholars with pork and

venison, besides preparation of rice and milk in ghee and honey with fruits and roots
(Payasam).
It was after this time that a change in our food habits occurred. The Dharma
Sutras, Manusmriti and related texts of 500-300 BC began forbidding and proscribing food items
based on their `temper' (sattvik peaceful and ascetic, rajasik medium, energetic that can be
either positive or negative, and tamasic or coarse, rough and not all that nice), and prohibiting
as many as 54 items (in particular a variety of animals) from the `proper' kitchen.
The teachings of Buddhism and Jainism against meat eating had taken hold by this time, and a
turn towards preferential vegetarianism began to be expressed in Hindu texts as well.
These, plus the diktats on satvik, rajasic, and tamasic practices changed the face of Indian
gastronomy already around 300 BC.

Ancient Tamil food

The earliest Tamil writings are traced to about 300 BC, but references to edibles and food habits
abound in literature between 100 BC and 300 AD (Idaicchangam). Dosai and Vadai, as said
above, were popular. Tamils ate meals of all kinds, as well as fish.
Condiments, spices, vegetables and pulses mentioned here are the same as those in
contemporary `northern' literature. The three great Tamil fruits were of course, mango, jackfruit
and bananas. Tamarind rice figures extensively, as also a drink made with tamarind and nellikai
(gooseberry).
Leafy greens (keerai), gourds, drumsticks and the three pulses were widely used. So were rice
and curd, and vadai soaked in curds no wonder we are still known as Thayirvadais. It was
only when immigrants entered Tamil country (ca. 700 AD) that vegetarianism seems to have
taken hold here.

Not mostly vegetarian

Contrary to popular belief, India is not a predominantly vegetarian country. But a quarter of the
population is reckoned, based on census data, to be vegetarian. 69 per cent of Gujarat is
vegetarian, 60 per cent of Rajasthan, 54 per cent of Punjab-Haryana, 50 per cent of Uttar
Pradesh, 45 per cent of Madhya Pradesh, 34 per cent of Karnataka, 30 per cent of Maharashtra,
21per cent of Tamil Nadu, 16 per cent of Andhra Pradesh, 15 per cent of Assam, while but 6 per
cent in Kerala, Orissa and West Bengal are veggies. While part of this vegetarianism is
economic, a more compelling force is ethical and even religious. Jains avoid meat totally while
many Buddhists in India are vegetarians.
Brahmins, Saivite non-Brahmins of South India and several Vaishnavite sects across the country
avoid meat. Interestingly though Brahmins of East India, Kashmir and the Saraswats of the
Southwest are allowed fish and some meat.
Even among meat-eaters, beef was and is taboo. This practice seems to be at least 2000 years
old (Achaya quotes DD Kosambi, who quotes the Vedic sage Yagnavalkya as preferring it.
Vasishta, Gautama, Apasthamba and Baudhayana, in their Sutras (ca. 300 BC) prohibit killing
cows and oxen and eating beef. It had become prevalent by 1100 AD across India, since AlBiruni wrote that while beef eating was prevalent earlier, it was not allowed later.
He gives economic, ethical and respect for its use as reasons. Emperor Humayun (16th century)
is quoted as saying "beef is not a food fit for the devout" and avoided it. Akbar too was similarly
respectful. And while Tamils of the Sangam period relished beef (Perumpanooru describes it), it
became taboo or discouraged after the advent of people from elsewhere. As a result, much of
India and certainly many Hindu communities avoid beef eating.

Debate meaningless
To my mind, debate about this issue today is meaningless and only inflammatory. We respect
people and adore gods not for what they eat but what they stand for and teach us. To think and
act otherwise is immature and infantile.
THE FOOD that we Indians have been eating has been, over the millennia, steadily evolving
both in variety and taste. Fortunately for us, these have been identified from relics and fossils,
and also described in the written lore over the years.
As discussed in the last article two weeks ago, the late Dr. K. T. Achaya has analysed these in a
scholarly and entertaining way in his booksIndian Food: A Historical Companion and A Historical
Dictionary of Indian Food. He traces how our food habits and preferences have changed in
stages over the last 4000 years, from the Indus Valley days through the Vedic times and after
the influence of Buddhist and Jain thought, and their impact on the Dharma Sutras and
Arthasastra of around 300 BC.
By the time we reach the Middle Ages (1000-1200 AD), we find several texts and commentaries
across the country that talk about culinary habits of local people and their kings. A meal was
now expected to have six components of quality and taste.

Royal meal
These are madhura (sweet), amla (sour), lavana (salty), kata (pungent), tikta (bitter) and
kasaya (astringent), as prescribed earlier on by Sushruta (around 600 AD). The
Bhavissayattakaha (of AD 1000) describes the royal meal of King Shrenika thus. First were
served fruits that could be chewed (grape, pomegranate, ber), then fruits to be sucked
(sugarcane, oranges, mangoes).
Food that could be licked came next and in the fourth course came solid sweet items such as
sevaka, modaka and phenaka. Rice followed next and the sixth was of broths. Curd preparation
made the seventh course and the eighth ended with thickened milk flavoured with saffron.
Items such as parpata (papad) and vataka (vadam) were common.
The extant vegetables ranged pretty much as before cucumber, brinjal, snake gourd and
other gourds, yams, French beans and cluster beans, leafy greens, onions and garlic, coconut,
cowpea, sweet potato (?) and such. It was with the entry of the Portuguese that a floodgate of
new vegetables entered the Indian land and kitchens.
They brought potato, tomato, tapioca, groundnuts, corn, papaya, pineapple, guava, avocado,
rajma (kidney bean), cashew, sapota (chiku), and of course capsicum and chilli in all its forms
(and I felt bad hearing about idli importation!). Perhaps the cauliflower and cabbage came from
Europe or Latin America too, but certainly a particular form of cottage cheese did come from the
Portuguese. It was this that became the chhana of Bengal and Orissa the base for many
Bengali sweets (Sandesh in its modern form, and of course inventions called Rasogolla,
Khirmohan, Mouchak, Pantua, Sitabhog, Chhena Puda, and so forth).
The Portuguese word for grain, grao, was taken up to describe Indian pulses as Bengal gram,
horse gram and other grams. While the Arabs and Central Asians brought bajra, jowar, lobia and
forms of bread (roti) into India, the Portuguese enriched Indian food through their diverse
introductions. When we eat Aloo-poori, we partake of the richness of the produce of people from
West Asia and Latin America!

Mughal influence
The next major influence on Indian cuisine came with the Mughals, starting with Babar who
came in 1526 to stay but four years here. While he remained aloof to the Indian supper-tables,
his son Humayun took to them easier and also introduced a few new items to it. It is with Akbar,
and through the book Ain-i-Akbari, that we know of many new dishes, ovens and recipes that

came into India through the Mughal court. Dishes like khichri, palak-sag, biryani, pilaf, haleem,
harisa, qutab (samosa), yakhni, kabab, do-pyaza, dumpukht, naan, tandoori, chapati (phulka)
and khushka.
The delicious cold kulfi was made at court by freezing a mixture of khoa, pista nuts and zafran
essence in a metal cone after sealing the open top with dough. (The only modification today is
to use aluminium or plastic cones with their own caps). Jahangir, unlike his father, enjoyed
meat, but will be remembered for popularizing falooda (a jelly made from boiled wheat
strainings mixed with fruit juices and cream).
With the Mughal introduction of the varieties of bread, meat dishes (particularly of fowl) and the
ovens to make them, and their methods to make ice locally, the cuisine of much of North India
transformed forever.
The Chinese had their influence too, though not to the extent of the Portuguese and the
Moghuls. Mulberry, blackberry and the litchi fruit came to us through them. Of Chinese origin
are also the sweet cherry and the peach. China also developed the leafy variety of Brassica
juncea (rai), which we in India use as a vegetable. Camphor is a Chinese import and
introduction (it is even today called chinakarpura).
The soybean was imported from China into India in 1908 for cultivation, though it caught on
widely only after the U.S. variety was introduced in 1970s. And the most precious introduction
of China to India (and to the world at large) is of course their cha or teh, namely tea. Just
imagine what we do first thing in the morning we pay obeisance to the Arabs with a cup of
coffee (they brought it to us in the 1600s) or to the Chinese with our steaming cuppa.

Introduction of apple
Compared to this cornucopia, the British brought us little in terms of food. Fish and chips or
Yorkshire pudding pale in comparison to what we got from the Arabs, Portuguese and Moghuls,
but the British did sensitise us to at least one fruit, namely the apple. Local varieties of apple
are recorded to have occured in Kashmir (called amri, tarehli and maharaji), and Dalhara in
1100 AD talked about a "ber as big as a fist and very sweet, grown in North Kashmir", which is
likely an apple. But it was the colourful Britisher Frederick "Pahari" Wilson who established a
flourishing apple farm in Garhwal, where they grow red and juicy Wilson apples to this day.
In these days of American imports into India such as Pizza, Burgers, French fries and colas, it is
well to remember the best import we have had from these, namely apples and express our
gratitude to the American Mr. Stokes.
He settled in Kotgarh near Simla in the 1920s and started apple orchards there, and helped in
the proper grading, packing and marketing of the fruit.

India-America amity
The two varieties he introduced, called `Delicious', have now become the major Indian apple
varieties, making the Himachal apple growers happy and more prosperous than before. He
married a local girl and settled down.
His descendants Smt. Vidya Stokes (politician) and Dr. Vijay Stokes (scientist) are well known.
Though Australian apples are increasingly found in the Indian market, it is still the Delicious that
rules the roost. Next time you bite into an Indian apple, you are celebrating Indo-American
amity!
One wonders, going as far back as the scriptures, what Lord Rama ate. Perhaps it is easier to
tell what Lord Rama did not eat.

No potato, no tomato, no cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, corn, tapioca, rajma, nor of course
chillies in any form! But then, I could be wrong since the sarva vyapi or the omnipresent might
very well have partaken of all these whenever He was in Europe and the Americas.
(Concluded)
D. Balasubramanian