Decoding the complex history of food in Delhi’s old gullies | Latest News Delhi

It’s a little after 9 am on a balmy February morning, and the dense lanes of old Delhi have begun to put themselves together. The cables hang over one’s shoulders, the labourers draw up carts to restock shop supplies, and the nanbais (bread makers) roll out dough balls to make fresh rotis.

The smell of tandoors, attars, and curries buried in handis wafts through the air, and amid all this chaos is food historian and writer Dr Pushpesh Pant, sporting a beret and a greedy smile, as he sits down with HT for breakfast at the iconic Al Jawahar restaurant near Jama Masjid – to talk about fables of feasts, mutton cutlets, the imprint of the British on the city’s eating habits, and his latest book From the King’s Table to Street Food (Speaking Tiger Books LLP, ₹699).

“The culture of breakfast as a meal was something that arrived with the British,” says Pant, as he waits for his plate of nihari (slow-cooked mutton stew) and khameeri roti (fluffy bread, slightly sour). The word nihari translates to the Arabic word ‘morning’.

What is the history of the food of Delhi? There is no one answer because the food of India’s Capital is the food of migrants, refugees, traders, administrators, travellers and colonisers – in no particular order. This is why Pant chose to subtitle his book “A Food History of Delhi” and not “history of Delhi food”.

On being asked what prompted him to write this book, the 78-year-old said, “Delhi is the only place I can call home… I came here when I was 17 and have lived here for over six decades. Cooking at home, eating out, eating with friends and colleagues form my core memory… I just wanted to put all of this in a historical context because I am a historian who has always been interested in food.”

In this book, he looks for the real Dilliwala, and wonders if there really is one. Through narratives woven into history and presented with anecdotes, Pant talks about the coexistence of cultures punctuated by historical events that shaped Delhi as a culinary capital through the centuries.

For instance, how the Old Famous Jalebi Wala, a sweet shop, was established in Dariba in 1884 by one Nemichand Jain who migrated from Agra for better prospects with just eight annas, Pant writes. He “sold rabri from a khomcha (a makeshift stand) before a kindly Muslim shopkeeper, Irfan Shamsuddin, took pity and let him set up a stall… outside his shop in 1912. He saved enough money to build a haveli and then there was no looking back,” the book says, citing lore.

From the narrow lanes of old Delhi to the Instagram reel-obsessed lanes of Connaught Place, Pant talks about how food changes course every five km, and bears witness to transitions as new communities trickle into the city — which eventually culminates into taste, smell and the flavour of Delhi.

But first, 78-year-old Pant, who has written India Cookbook, The Indian Vegetarian Cookbook, and Buddhist Peace Recipes, returns to his plate of nihari, the popular Mughlai dish. The mutton is slow-cooked overnight till it absorbs flavours from the marrow, the layers of spices, onions, ghee and the thickening agent — wheat flour, which adds to the silken texture. “You can see that the fat is separated from the curry. It is the lashkari khaana — food of soldiers,” says Pant. In his book, he writes about soldiers who were posted from “Lahori Gate to Kotwali to shield Qila e Mubarak or the Red Fort. “This is where lashkari khaana (nahari-paye, robust barra, and boti kebab was popular,” he writes.

The morning crowd at Al Jawahar, which was established in 1947-48, includes a couple of foreigners, families, and some regulars. A few metres away is Subhanallah Hotel, a hole in the wall that mostly caters to regulars who want a quick bite before they rush to work, and costs very little. In the same lane is Karim’s — known for its mutton barra, and its origin story that dates back to 1913. Here, Pant points out, half a mutton burra costs ₹460. “The pricing is such because its target audience is not those in the immediate vicinity but ones visiting from outside,” says Pant.

Among the many original settlers of Shahjahanabad were folks from Punjab and Kashmir, Baniyas from Rajasthan, and Kayasthas and Khatris from Uttar Pradesh, many of whom were in service of the Mughal court, Pant writes. Through the years, ethnic minorities such as Parsis, Biharis, Nepalese, Anglo-Indians, south Indians and people from the Northeast added their own culinary experiences to the mix.

From Jama Masjid, the author now moves to Chandni Chowk. With the change in landscape was also a shift in smells — attars give way to dhoop sticks, and kebabs to pakoras. “This is Dariba, an enclave of the Baniyas, occupied by traders,” Pant says, as he wolfs down a plate of jalebis and a matar ka samosa from Old Famous Jalebi Wala.

Pant writes that the domestic kitchens largely held on to the Baniya and Kayastha cuisines, later merging with Punjabi and Kashmiri flavours. The recipes involved copious amounts of coriander, cumin, fennel, carrom, fenugreek and nigella seeds. Some dinner favourites were pyaaz ki sabzi (for those not averse to onions), and aam ke katre ka hing wala achar. The evening snacks brought together moong dal chilla, and aloo matar ki chaat.

Around 12.30 pm, Pant and the writer left the lanes of old Delhi and walked into Kwality, a restaurant that brought tastes favourable to the American GIs during World War II, since it first opened doors in Connaught Place in 1940. It became a regular haunt of politicians, ambassadors and foreign dignitaries. As he settles into an upholstered chair and orders a plate of mutton cutlets, he says, “I love this place, I love coming here… There was a time when this cost just ₹10. The quality of Kwality has not changed,” he says.

The arrival and departure of the British left an enormous food imprint, says Pant. Cutlets, roasts, pies and custards clung onto the food spectrum; iconic eateries and restaurants such as Wenger’s, Kwality, Gaylord, Volga, and United Coffee House took over Delhi in the first half of the 20th century. “It was quite common for the well-off to go out for dinner and dancing, as all restaurants had a live band, many with crooners,” Pant writes.

The influx of Partition refugees in 1947 allowed the Multani, Rawalpindi, Lahori and Amritsari dhabas to flourish. The mayhem of Partition homogenised “Punjabi food”, changing its meaning and blurring the sub-regional ethnicities, he writes in his book. Dishes like butter chicken and dal makhani entered the city’s vocabulary but what truly dominated homes were the humble bhartas, saag and sabzis that dominated homes. All of this was before paneer “annihilated” the foods of Delhi.

From the King’s Table to Street Food broadly covers episodes from when Delhi was Indraprastha, moves on to the reign of the Sultans in the 13th century, and traces the present preferences on Zomato. The book seamlessly moves from the Walled City to the Capital’s peripheries, from the arrival of the British to the merger of Anglo and Indian cultures — and is a repository of stories of how food has evolved in Delhi temporally and geographically. And how Delhi has something for everyone.