Not in good taste: PM2.5 levels take the smoke out of tandoors

Irshad Qureshi, 34, wears a scowl as he flits between the cash counter at the front of Qureshi Kebab, a famous eatery in old Delhi, and the tandoor and sigdi (stove) at the back. The orders have started piling up — five plates of chicken seekh kebab, three plates of mutton seekh kebab, 10 roomali roti, extra chutney, extra onion.

- Paras Singh

The Qureshi family has served customers from the small outlet for six decades, and little has changed in that time. The location, the neighbourhood, the menu, the recipes – most of the ingredients that power the tandoori store have been largely unchanged since its shutters were first lifted. Except one – the tandoor itself. The wood-charcoal fired tandoor has stepped aside for one fuelled by LPG, a behind-the-curtains change that has fundamentally altered the national capital’s decades-long love affair with the kebab

The once-ubiquitous wood-charcoal fired tandoor has faded from kitchens in Delhi’s restaurants since 2018, when authorities began clamping down on their use as a pollution-control measure. These curbs have altered a touchstone of Delhi’s cuisine indelibly, and perhaps irreversibly, forcing restaurants to reinvent their kitchens and residents to reacquaint their palates.

Many, like Irshad, believe pollution has killed the kebab.

He is forced to shift to the LPG gas-operated tandoor every winter. “But the real taste comes only with the traditional fire. Our elders had it right. The kebabs don’t cook uniformly on gas, but we are trying to master it to overcome the change,” he added.

Necessary as it may be, it isn’t a change that he, or Delhi, is pleased with.

The meat of the matter

Every winter, as pollution levels skyrocket into poisonous territory, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) goes about destroying tandoors in eateries across the city. Over the past month alone, the civic body demolished 1,322 tandoors in a bunch of restaurants.

“Each year, we destroy 1,000-1,500 tandoors or turn them into LPG or CNG units,” an MCD official told HT.