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Obsession with biriyani
Mention biriyani to any meat-eating Indian friends of mine, and their eyes light up - whether they're from the north or south; Hindu, Muslim, Parsee or Christian.
- Gautam Raja, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:32 December 15, 2008
Mention biriyani to any meat-eating Indian friends of mine, and their eyes light up - whether they're from the north or south; Hindu, Muslim, Parsee or Christian.
And it doesn't matter what kind of biriyani: chicken, mutton, beef, or even fish; Andhra, Hyderabadi or Lucknowi. The dish is a success no matter when it's served. (Mention the oxymoronic vegetable biriyani at your own peril, it's usually cause enough for a lynching.)
Biriyani is also the favourite to feed any large gathering. It is possible, in a social summer, to end up eating so much of it, that one actually starts to hope there's anything but that on the menu. Until the next time that the lid comes off, and the fragrance of rice, meat and spices fills the room.
Several international friends, tasting it with high expectations, have wondered what the fuss is all about... it's nice, but in the end, it's just rice and meat, isn't it?
I believe our obsession with biriyani goes far deeper than just the flavours. (Though it does irritate me that subtler Indian dishes are often dismissed by non-Indian eaters as bland, as if all Indian food must be fiery and spiced to the gills.) One aspect is that rice is comfort food for Indians. After a long journey, there's nothing that screams "home" more than being knuckle-deep in hot rice with daal or curry. But then why doesn't rice and curry arouse the same passion as biriyani?
Theory
My theory takes us back to infancy. To a time when our solid meals were rice-based ones pre-mixed by our mothers - hot and ready to eat. A biriyani is, in a general sense, like a mashed up rice and curry, and takes us subconsciously to mealtimes when all we had to do to get fed was go "aah". No washing of hands, no waiting to serve oneself, no mixing, and not even the transport of food from plate to mouth.
This theory helps explain a similar passion that exists for vegetarian equivalents. Kichdi for example, the rice-and-lentil dish that gets an entire swathe of North India all teary eyed, just as bisi bele bhath does in Karnataka. And don't start a Tamilian Brahmin on curd rice - rice with yogurt tempered with fried spices and lentils.
But when love is heaped upon even the most mediocre biriyani, I can see how the fuss is baffling. Like the American love for macaroni-and-cheese - a good example of needing to account for the power of childhood memories. And not just any cheese, but a melting gloop that's a bright, Tonka-toy yellow.
But as an American friend said recently, "We know exactly what our cheese is like." She shops at supermarkets that have a huge range of English, French and Italian cheeses. As well as artisanal American ones (of which there are plenty). She travels nearly every summer to Europe and knows what "good" cheese is. But when she's feeling down, she always goes back to yellow American cheese. "This is the cheese we knew as kids," she says. "It's comforting."
Great fortune
Sometimes, to our great fortune, we outgrow the culinary obsessions of our childhood. Bread and butter with sugar, for example. Or, as with my brother and I, a drink of vinegar with salt and chilli powder.
Then there was brain Maggi. How I'd love this dish of Maggi noodles cooked with egg, allowed to go cold and become a grey squelchy mass that I'd cut into with a spoon.
No amount of cultural interpretation is going to explain that away... though it would certainly be fun to try.
Gautam Raja is journalist based in the US.
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