Food: Eating In Mughal India

by Anne Harwood

for the Scholars of St. Thomas, June 2008

Sacred Hindu texts, called Vedas and composed between 1500 and 1200 BCE, speak of various foodstuffs cultivated by the Aryan civilization that flourished in the Gangetic plain during that period. Wheat is not mentioned in the Rig Veda, the earliest of the Scriptures, but occurs in the Yajurveda, composed around 800 BCE. The Yajurveda also lists three essential pulses, namely urad, mung and masoor, still used widely in Indian cuisine to the present day. Sometime between 800 and 350 BCE, rice becomes a staple, as well as pearl barley, and both are described as being boiled in milk.[1]   

Several centuries later, Emperor Akbar’s biographer, Abu Fas’l, left an exhaustive description of the types of foods available in India during the emperor’s reign when he wrote The Ain-I-Akbari in the years 1596-1597. Fas’l tells us that the spring harvest yielded such cereals as wheat, barley and millet. Wheat was generally too expensive for the common man,[2] who had to content himself with rices, millets and pulses. In the fall, farmers harvested crops of various rices, black and white sesame, and mung beans, to name just a few.[3]

The Yajurveda also mentions several fruits and vegetables, such as dates and mangoes, also found in The Ain-I-Akbari. Lotus root and bottle gourd are found even earlier in the pages of the Rig Veda.[4] In Fas’l’s account, we read of spinach, cabbage, turnips, bamboo, carrots, eggplant, sorrel and fennel. He also lists a number of Hindustani fruits, among which are familiar names: mangoes, quinces, limes, oranges, coconuts, jackfruits, melons, pomegranates, dates, plaintains and guavas.[5] Several of these, such as the coconut, banana, jackfruit and palm are mentioned in early Jain and Buddhist literature written around 400 BCE.[6]

While salt is not mentioned in the Rig Veda, later scriptures cite it frequently, where it takes on a ritual significance.[7] The earliest spices mentioned are mustard, turmeric, and long pepper. By the Buddhist era (around 400 BCE), Indians were using ginger, cumin and cloves.[8] During the reign of the Mughals, this list is further expanded to include saffron, cloves, cardamom, horseradish, mint, garlic, aniseed, coriander, fennel and cinnamon.[9] One component that is missing from Fas’l’s account is the hot chili that the modern mind typically associates with spicy Indian cuisine. In fact, the chili is a relatively recent addition to Indian cooking, as the Portguese introduced it sometime during the middle of Akbar’s reign.[10]

The Portuguese also introduced pineapples and corn to the Indian subcontinent, but the latter did not become a significant crop until the 17^th century.[11]

Cultivated nuts include almonds, walnuts, pistachios, filberts and hazelnuts.[12] Honey was the earliest sweetener available to Indians, and early Scriptures forbade it to students and women.[13] By the Buddhist era, however, honey has given way to jaggery (rock sugar) and sugar cane.[14] These are both common sweeteners by the Mughal invasion in the 12^th century. Clarified butter, called ghee, was extensively used, as was mustard oil.[15]

Using flour made from various pulses, Indians baked breads such as chapattis, a thin, unleavened wafer baked on a flat iron and resembling a flat taco shell.[16]

Fas’l tells us that Akbar was largely vegetarian in his diet.

  It is indeed from ignorance and cruelty that, although various kinds of food are obtainable, men are bent upon injuring living creatures, and lending a ready hand in killing and eating them; none seems to have an eye for the beauty inherent i n the prevention of cruelty, but makes himself a tomb for animals. If his Majesty had not the burden of the world on his shoulders, he would at once totally abstain from meat.[17]

Vegetarianism has always been an important part of Hinduism, although not universally embraced. Francois Bernier, a French physician visiting India in the 17^th century, observed, “Indians are tenderhearted towards animals of every description, man only excepted.”[18] It is important to understand, however, that strictly speaking, meat was only forbidden to Brahmins, who were expected to resist “giving way to their lusts.”[19]  Although early visitors to India remarked on the seeming universality of vegetarianism amongst Hindus, this probably had more to do with the expense of meat than religious taboo or compassion.[20] Nevertheless, it is anathema to any devout Hindu to consume the meat of the cow, which they consider a holy animal. Therefore beef never appears on the table of a Hindu, even if he is normally a meat-eater. This injunction against the flesh of the cow, however, is not extended to the other products a cow yields, such as butter, milk, yoghurt and cheese (paneer).

Those consuming meat in Akbar’s era had a number of options, including mutton and goat. Being Muslim, the Mughals did not eat pork, but, though it was considered  “low meat,” they did eat beef, which was often passed off as lamb by unscrupulous cooks.[21] Fowl was popular and some unusual choices were to be had: alongside geese, ducks and partridges, one could find cranes, curlews, and doves.[22] Despite the popularity of poultry, eggs do not figure in traditional Indian cuisine. Hindus consider eggs and shellfish unclean, and are therefore not consumed.[23] Peacock, called “the Bird of 100 Eyes” due to the design on its elaborate tail, was also considered sacred, and not eaten by Hindus. Other foods forbidden to Hindus include ox, ass, elephant, horse, dog, fox, wolf, lion and monkey. Hares, deer, gazelle and fish were acceptable.[24]

As I practice vegetarianism outside the SCA, Rajpal also eschews the meat of animals.

A note must be made of beverages in Mughal India. Although the modern mind often associates India with tea from Darjeeling, Ceylon and Assam, research indicates that tea was not commonly available in India during the reign of Akbar. It is probable that some tea had found its way into India via trade with China, which had been enjoying tea for a couple of thousand years, but the earliest reference to tea in India is by a German in Gujarat in 1638,[25] sixty years after the period that concerns this study. Mostly, it seems to have been popular amongst the Dutch and English visitors in port towns. The cultivation of tea would not begin in India until the middle of the 19th century.

Coffee was also imported, probably from Ethiopia and the Middle East, and was enjoyed as a luxury item by the wealthiest emirs at Akbar’s court. It was supposed to have medicinal properties, aiding digestion, speeding the metabolism and cleansing the blood.[26] Unfortunately, coffee is well beyond Rajpal’s means. Instead, he and his family refresh themselves with milk, coconut milk, lemonade[27] or sweet fruit juices.

Islamic law strictly prohibits alcohol, although this was usually overlooked by the elite. Akbar enjoyed toddy, a mixed warm drink made of palm wine.[28] Although various regions of India, such as Bengal, produce grapes, these are not suitable for wine, and the Mughal emperors imported their wine, which they mixed with hemp and opium.[29]  While wine could be bought from merchants in the marketplace, many orthodox Hindus refrained, as their behaviour regarding drink was moderated by social taboos.[30]

If, however, Rajpal wished to entertain guests with spirituous liquor, arrack was widely available and much cheaper than wine.[31] Fas’l describes the method of distilling arrack, which was made by mixing sugarcane with the bark of the acacia tree and water. The mixture was poured into earthenware jars and buried in the soil, surrounded by dry dung. Within the week, wild yeasts in the sugarcane created fermentation. When the fermentation slowed, more sugarcane was added, and sometimes camphor and ambergris, and the brew returned to the soil. Following this second fermentation, the process of distillation was initiated by pouring the wine into brass vessels with a cup suspended above the liquid. The vessels were sealed with clay and a fire lit underneath. The liquor condensed inside the cup. Fas’l mentions that the best arrack is distilled twice.[32]

The Procurement, Preparation and Consumption of Food

The Mughals had a passion for gardens, and Akbar was an avid horticulturalist[33], but the Hindu concept of the garden was quite dissimilar. Whereas the Mughals redirected streams, created waterfalls and painstakingly laid the garden out in perfectly symmetrical quadrants, Hindus seemed to embrace a less formal, more naturalistic concept that resembled groves.[34] If, therefore, Rajpal had a garden attached to his home, it provided recreation and a sanctuary, rather than a fresh source of food.

For the urban dweller, food of all descriptions was available in the marketplace. In large villages, live sheep, fowl and pigeons could be had, and food shops offered roasted meats. Even markets in small communities offered such items as rice, flour, butter, milk beans, sugar and vegetables, and bakers sold various breads including chapattis and naan.[35]

Food was prepared in the kitchen of the home, which was set up adjacent to the area of worship. The domestic Hindu hearth, Achaya tells us, “was considered an area of high purity, even sanctity,”[36] and the cooking of food a very ritualized process. A cook was expected to bathe with running water (not stagnant water in a tub) prior to cooking, and to wear unstitched clothing—such as a sari or dhoti—while preparing the meal. It was unthinkable for a cook to sample the food while it was cooking, and drinks were never sipped from the cup, as one’s own saliva was polluting. In a home such as Rajpal’s, cooking was the province of women, and it probably fell to his mother, wife and sister-in-law to prepare the meals for the household.

Food was prepared in several different ways. Since Vedic times, Indians have used such techniques as drying, parboiling, steaming frying, roasting, grilling and baking. Meat was also roasted on spits. [37] In the northwest of India, cooks used the distinctive earthen oven called a tandoor, fuelled by dried cow dung. In describing the bread of India, Bernier writes, “…the ovens are unlike our own and very defective. (The bread) has a burnt taste.”[38] This was the result of the dough being slapped against the inside wall of the tandoor and left to bake exposed to the open flames.

Utensils were often made of metal, copper or iron, and included a variety of saucepans, pots, cauldrons, knives, spoons and ladles.[39] Vessels, pots and jars could also be earthenware. Serving dishes were ceramic, in an affluent or middle class home. To guard against flies, Indians used a kudu, a bamboo coop.[40]

Eating was as highly ritualized an affair as preparing the food. Prior to dining, the floor was rubbed over with cow dung.[41] Though distasteful to our modern Western sensibilities, it is important to remember the sanctity of the cow to Hindus. Furthermore, as with so many rituals, practicality (even if long forgotten by those who practice the ritual) plays a part: cow dung is actually antiseptic in nature. After this, a cloth was spread upon the floor and the dishes brought in from the kitchen, placed in front of the diners who sat cross-legged upon the edges of the cloth.

Of eating rituals, Achaya observes

Food was never to be eaten standing up, lying down, moving about or from the lap. One had to eat sitting on the ground, alone, facing east or north, and in total silence. Morsels of the meal were cast into the fire as an oblation, and prayers offered to various deities and one’s ancestors…The householder was expected to see to the feeding of his guests and of any pregnant women, infants and aged persons in his household before he himself sat down to eat.[42]

Men and women always ate separately.[43] Food was eaten from banana leaves stitched together with bamboo slivers, and only with the right hand.[44] When the men had eaten their fill, they left the room to wash once more, and the women and children of the household took their places on the cloth to eat what the men had left behind.

A Recipe From Akbari India

In The Ain-I-Akbari, Abu Fas’l gives three categories of dishes, for which he includes recipes. The first category is vegetarian dishes, and these consist of mostly rice dishes. Interestingly, rice was often cooked with sugar as well as more savoury spices, lending the dish a complex character. Also, some of these rice dishes include lentils, or dhal: when combined, these constitute a whole protein, which would be of prime importance to vegetarians and those unable to afford meat.

Due to the availability of the ingredients, all of these dishes would not be out of place on a modern Indian table. Fas’l’s proportions are very large, as he is describing a recipe served at Imperial banquets, but with a little practice, this recipe may be redacted for the historical recreationist. A modern addition to this traditional dish is paneer, or cheese, which is fried in cubes.

Saag

Fas’l tells us that Ság “is made of spinach, and other greens, and is one of the most pleasant dishes”, which is why I have selected it.

It calls for

10 ser spinach, fennel, etc.,

1½ ser g'hí (ghee, or clarified butter)

1 ser onions

½ ser fresh ginger

5½ maund of pepper

½ maund of cardamums and cloves: this gives six dishes.

A ser, in Akbar’s reign, was the equivalent of 2 lbs. A maund was 40 ser, or 80 lbs.[45]