A MOUTHFUL OF AVADH

A few connoisseurs and chefs are trying to revive erstwhile Avadhi dishes in their authentic form

- PUJA AWASTHI

In the court of Avadh, fashion, poetry, calligraphy, architecture, music, and dance scaled monumental heights. And in its cuisine, there was a coming together of the most delicate visual, artistic, spiritual, and gastronomic delights.

There is not a city in India today without at least one restaurant offering Avadhi delicacies. But most of these can hardly hold a candle to the tastes that were so relished in what was once India’s most glittering court. Take the biryani, a delicacy widely perceived to have originated in Avadh (also Awadh, or Oudh). Yet it is a dish that was never cooked in the province to start with! Biryani came to Avadh through the royal brides of Delhi and Hyderabad, and their retinue of cooks. But the parboiled rice with meat pieces was at once declared by the nawabs to be too coarse for their delicate palates. Thus, efforts were made to improve it. This resulted in the yakhni pulao, in which the rice was cooked in rich meat stock with no bones or whole spices.

The book, Dastarkhwane-Awadh—The cuisine of Awadh, written by Sangeeta Bhatnagar and Raj Kumar Saxena, contains recipes from erstwhile royal and elite kitchens of Avadh, tried and perfected by the authors. Bhatnagar, a food consultant, says that while there is a revival of interest in Avadh’s cuisine, many misconceptions remain. One of the most glaring of these is that it is synonymous with Mughlai food.