Muslims & Indian Food

Dietary injunctions are derived from the QURAN the sunnah which are the recorded words of the Prophet MOHAMMED. Swine flesh is prohibited but seafood is allowed. Except for fish it is mandatory to slaughter the animal by cutting the jugular vein or by piercing the hollow of the throat while uttering the name of ALLAH. a procedure termed “Halal”
Alcohol is forbidden.

Islam enjoins that no food be wasted even leftovers being saved and eaten . Islam stresses on sharing the food with others. dates, honey, figs, olives, pomegranate, milk and sherbets are items specially recommended as food in the QURAN.

in Indian while these injunctions are mostly observed, in practice the food actually consumed & the social dietary ritual are influenced by the regional practices, example of regional influences are numerous and are well recorded.

The Arabs were the carriers of Indian trade with west for centuries before they became Muslims. It is therefore to be expected that their conversion would not be without effect upon India.

Their first expedition was led to Thana on the west coast without much success. The next attempt was by land into western Sind. Sind continued to be always under the Muslims until its annexation to the Delhi Empire. of the Arabs conquest of Sind there is nothing more to be said except, “that it introduced into one frontier tract the religion which was destined to dominate the greater parts of India for nearly five centuries”. [Annual of rajas than by Tod.]

After Sind and Multan it was the turn of the Punjab to become a Muslim province. This time it was no punitive expedition like that of the Arabs but a plundering raid by a Turkish adventure. The Turks were a people altogether different from both Arabs and the Persians.

Turks turned the faith and fortunes of Islam in altogether new directions. The Arab had led it to cord ova and the Iranian to Baghdad, the Turks took it to Delhi Empire.

The fate of Indian was being decided before the Hindu - Kush when during the 9th and 10th century A.D., the Turks tilted the scales against their masters at Baghdad and Bukhara, creating independent principles of their own. The founder of these kingdoms, in the Persian & Afghan dominions, of the caliphs, were Turkish Slaves, but destined to revive and extend the power of the crescent and enslave the vast infidel population of India.

A series of accidents deflected the ferocious greedy and fanatical Turks into the valley of the Indus, where they were lured into the richer plains of Hindus tan. The first of these happenings was in the Kingdom of Kabul. subaktageen was the first Muslim, who attempted the invasion of India from the North West. But his more famous son Mahmud made himself easily the foremost ruler of his age the Islamic World, and determined the future of India. His last successor was hounded out by the new Afghan power of the Ghuri.

The real founder of Muslim power in India was Mohammed Ghuri. Qutab ud din Aibak, the slaves of Mohammed Ghuri, was the one who created the Muslim Sultanate of Delhi. This slave King held power during 80 years and the flag of the crescent waved over the greater part of India. Then Babar founded the Mughal Empire in 1526 by overthrowing the Lodis, the Afghans Kings. The Empire remained in splendor for two centuries.

This was in short to provide information regarding the arrival of Muslims into India and their influences on Indian culture and Cuisine.

Arabs, Turks, Afghans and the Persians, they all left their impact into the soil of Hindus tan which was shared by the regional influences both by Hindus And Muslims. With advent of every Dynasty, variation in habit, culture and cuisine was noticed in India.

Muslims brought a refined courtly etiquette’s of both group and individual dining, and of sharing food in fellowship. Food items native to India, were enriched with nuts, raisins, spices & ghee. These included meat and rice dishes, dressed meat [kabab] stuffed items [samosa] desserts [halwa and stewed fruits] and sweetened drinks [sherbets and faluda] new dishes enriched the cuisine of the land. Wheat was mixed with meat dishes like halim and harisa were prepared, meat was mixed with rice and different kinds of pulaos were cooked. Kulfi, Jalebi and falooda found their places in the cuisine of India.

The Muslims influenced both style and substance of Indian food Babar remained an alien to Indian food. Humayun was more Indianized and gave up meat for some months when he started his campaign. He also said beef was not a food fit for the devout.

Akbar did not like meat and took it seasonally. He started his meat with curd and rice, and preferred simple food but his table was sumptuous, consisting of more than 40 dishes. The Ain i Akbar describes 3 classes of cooked dishes. the first called Sufiyana consumed on Akbar’s days of abstinence, no meat dishes made of rice, were zard biranj, sheer biranj, khushka and khichdi, wheat [the glutton of wheat isolated by washing and than seasoned], dals, palak saag, halwa, sherbets etc. the second class compared those in which both meat and rice were used like pulao, biryani, shulla, and shurba or meat and wheat like harisa haleem kashk and qutab [samosa]. The third class was that, in which meat was cooked with ghee, spices, curd, eggs etc. such dishes were yakhni kebab, do piyaza, qalya, malghooba, musamman.

Bread was either thick, baked in tandoor or thin baked on tawa. Jahangir, unlike his father, enjoyed eating meat and especially the animal of the chase, but continued his father’s schedule of abstention, adding Thursday to them that being the day of Akbar’s birth. He did not eat fish . A rich Gujarati khichri called lazeezan made of rice cooked with dals, ghee, spices and nuts was his favorite dish. He loved drinking falooda.. Jahagir was great naturalist. He found flesh of mountain goat more delicious than other wild animals. He found milk of antelope to be palatable and adds, they say it is of great use in asthma. Aurangzeb was a Spartan, no meat passed his lips. He drank water from Ganga and ate millet bread.

During Shah jahan’s period food was at its peak. Humbler Muslims ate naan with keema or kabab, rice with onions, phirni and kheer, halwa and dried fruits for breakfast. Workman ate khichri with butter in the evening or rice boiled with pieces of flesh or kebabs. They have not many roast or baked meat, but stew most of their flesh. Do piyaza made of meat, onion and herbs, some roots with a little spice and butter the most savoury meat I ever tasted. father Sebastian manrique describes 3 kinds of bread in Lahore, one was unleavened and paper thin, eaten by poor, the second, thick as finger [khajur] was for rich class and the third a sweet form called khjuru made with wheat flour, poppy seed, sugar and ghee.

Early European officials in India laid lavish tables. they ate roast fowl, curry and rice, a mutton pie, rice pudding, tarts, cheese, fresh churned butter, bread was made at home. By the turn of 20th century eating pattern had changed. In the 18th century lunch was the main meal, dinner was light but a century later lunch became lighter. In 1910 a suggested lunch consisted of pea soup, roast chicken and tongue, bread, sauce, potatoes, cheese, macaroni and lemon pudding. Supper was served at 7 or 8 in the evening.

In 1909 the writer man divers said India is the land of dinners. With the arrivals of mew sahibs the account of Indian food shouted to English style. Soup, roasts, baked pies, and pudding, of course the Indian ambiance could not be avoided. A number of dishes came up between. English lady and her Indian cook like Windsor soup, patnarice, a broth of doll, burdwan stew. kebabs, curry chutney, byculla pudding etc.

Apart from the items some Anglo Indian terms arose in the area of food. Punch was from panache, rice cakes appam, and was hopper pepper water [rasam] was rendered into English as mulligatawny a fiery soup. The baking of meat in a sealed vessel Dumpukht became dumpoke, the most widely used term was curry with the partition of India and influx of Punjabi refugees into Delhi, Delhi acquired yet another layer of culture, tandoori cooking. with independence, The princely kingdom was merged with India and later was divided into state. royal banquets, hunt parties and picnics became stories of the past. Small eating-places came up with tandoor meal. Home-style food was never served. Menu of a successful restaurant was copied by other and the same menu with a different taste remain available to people. Then the country got into the grip of Hindi chini bhai bhai slogan and the Chinese joints came on the surface like mushrooms.

Anew menu was preferred and Chinese restaurants small or big became popular with the people. Regional food also found its place in the metropolitan cities and eating out became more common. Now with the arrival of multinational, international food has found its place on the map of India what is popular is nothing but junk food, which has neither taste nor expertise and thus the art of cooking, has vanished totally. It is preferred to eat fast food, bring precooked food or frozen items, put them in the microwave and of spices get ready for dinner. the art of cooking, the aroma, the flavor has disappeared totally leaving behind good looking packages of various kinds.

we have got to infuse life into the dead body of Indian cuisine; we have got to make the culinary art alive once again by reviving the old recipes of master cooks and food which adorned the tables of nawabs and zamindars. The present generation must be introduced to the lost treasure of Indian palate which is so varied and different. The present craze for the fitness programs and Health food is all hidden in our rituals and systems. The physical fine-tuning is achieved by a series of weekly fasts to clean the system and by careful selection of the seasoning used in the meals. According to ayurvedic and unani system of medicine, all spices and herbs have been assigned medical properties. Turmeric is an antiseptic; asafetida is a digestive, which combats flatulence. Garlic is good for circulatory ailments, coriander and tamarind for constipation, cloves for toning up the heart and black pepper, for giving energy to new mothers. In the 10th century hakims became known as fine confections and spices blenders. Their masalas were flavored as well as medically beneficial. Good health represented a balance between various forces and dietary injunctions were just as important as medication in its maintenance. In fact some medical preparations were simply regular cooked food items. Eating food that clashes with any ingrained, temperature or seasonal contraction can bring ill health and disease.

The present generation has not only forgotten this basic principle of diet; it is important to remind younger generation about the basic principal of good health, which is not found in the health clubs and gymnasiums but in the balanced diet cooked in proper manner.

A. To bring back the food, which was enjoyed and nourished by the earlier generation, extensive research is required. it would be necessary to travel, meet people of the older generation [especially women] retired cooks of the nawabs and zamindars and rajas to learn from them the art which pleased their masters and brought them rewards but has remained unrecorded.

B. Experiment the found recipes with an efficient team, develop them and than present them to the world to day.

C. A treasure of recorded account of royal kitchen preserved in the national museum of India and other libraries. These records are in Persian language and require to be translated into English to be able to experiment the recipes and to bring them to life, once again.

D. On the tourism scene, demonstration of Indian traditional cooking along with recipes and samples of Indian herbs and spices can be introduced on regular basis to group travelers.

E. Themes and festivals or celebration of seasons with right kind of food.

F. To develop concept restaurants breakfast eateries, snacks joints [dimsim]

G. To develop farm where vegetables are grown with organic manure, it is the most important aspect of cooking unless your foundation is solid you cannot built a castle.

Seven Great Mughals

Babur

On dresses, food and music great influence of central Asian culture. Also influence of frontier food

• Sherbets and fruits
• Pathan dresses
• Music rabab/ sarod

Humayun

Iranian influence on food, use of dry fruits, more rice preparation a little sophistication in the food service

• Iranian dresses
• Music sitar

Akbar

Rajasthani influence on dresses, food and classical music

• Vegetarian food
• Classical music
• Naggara playing
• Rajasthani dresses[ use ofghagra choli]
• Meena bazar by ladies

Jahagir

Kashmir influence on food, shikar ka gosht, elegance in dresses, use of silk, music santoor

• Astrology, Hakim. gems and jewels
• New fashion in dresses
• Use of Attar

Shahjahan

Real exotic food , use of Zardozi, Kathak dance

Aurangzeb

Simple vegetarian food [khichri and simple dresses of Sufis and army, Qawwalis]

Bahadur Shah Zafar

Same dresses and food as shahjahan, mushaira of the last mughal

Food Consultancy

Coming soon…

Irfan Qureshi

Mohammed Irfan Qureshi

Is a scion of the First Family of the Indian Kitchen and Joint Director GRANDE CUISINE OF INDIA. A Korma, Kabab and Biryani Grand Master, he has honed his skills under traditional master’s chef and father Imtiaz Qureshi. Having worked with ITC Hotels he has had the privilege of being part of Dum Cuisine being recreated by his father.

Irfan has performed at festivals in Memphis—USA, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Belgium, Mauritius, Singapore, Fiji, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Egypt, China and many cities in India. He has also been credited with the successful launch of Dum Pukht Maurya Sheraton Delhi, Dum Pukht- Searock Sheraton Mumbai, Dum Pukht- Grand Kakatiya Sheraton Hyderabad and Agni Restaurant-Perth Australia.

Ashfaque Qureshi

Mohammed Ashfaque Qureshi

A Chef turned Foodie, he has had the distinction of having the doyen of Indian Food. He has researched the finer nuances of food. He is currently a Managing Director with GRANDE CUISINES OF INDIA, a leading food consultant company. The company has been conceptualized by him, and has done numerous food festivals in India and Overseas and provided consultancy to hotel and restaurant in the field of Heritage Cuisines.

He and Grand Master Chef Mohammed Irfan Qureshi has been creating gourmet meals for many prestigious clients—including the Hon’able Former Prime Minister of India, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpaye among others.

Imtiaz Qureshi

Mohammed Imtiaz Qureshi

Recreating the magic of royal kitchen

Born over 60 years ago into family of ‘Khandani’ Bawarchi’s for Chef Imtiaz it was a foregone conclusion that he would eventually become a chef. His ancestors were noted chefs of the nawabs and when Imtiaz’s father died young, his mother apprenticed her seven-year-old son to her brother who was considered among the best in Lucknow.

Beginning with the lowest category of jobs, the young Imtiaz learnt all the skill of the trade from his master. During his days with his uncle, business flourished and gradually clients began to seek out young Imtiaz. His uncle found this disturbing and Imtiaz’s mother intervened to withdraw her son from the apprenticeship – because in time-honoured Indian style, the shishya is not excepted to outshine the guru.

Joining a reputed restaurant in Lucknow, Imtiaz soon became the best known chef in the city. The restaurant also developed an enviable reputation for catering at all the major feast and wedding in the city. Imtiaz remembers catering for a banquet of 1000 covers hosted by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Pandit Nehru, the chief guest, had insisted on congratulating the young chef himself.

Soon after this, ITC offered Imtiaz a contract, to head the operation of their Indian kitchens. Imtiaz was encouraged to research the forgotten cuisine of he nawab of Awadh. He spent years in perfecting the receipts, naming it Dum Pukht after the process of cooking. The cuisine was launched at a restaurant by the same name at the ITC Maurya Sheraton in 1989. The rest is the culinary history.