Tuesday, June 4, 2013

La-la-la-la-lasagna!

Here's another food-song. In 1997, Weird Al Yankovic, an American entertainer came with with this gem. The song names nine Italian dishes! I think that's the highest amount of food any song has ever hogged. Here is the song and the lyrics. Or should I call it the lunch menu?




La-la-la-la-lasagna
You want some lasagna magnifico!
Or a-maybe spaghetti
Ay, you supper's a-ready now, where you go?
Mama mia bambino,
Mama mia bambino, 'samatta you
'Samatta you, 'samatta you?

You should taste my lasagna
Ay, you no like lasagna?
That's okay too,
How about calzone?
Some-a nice minestrone, 'ats good for you
Have some marinara,
Have some marinara, I know you like
I know you like, I know you like!

La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!

Would you like some zucchini?
Or my homemade linguini, it's hard to beat!
Have more fettuccini.
Ay, you getting too skinny, you gotta to eat
Ay, mange, mange!

Ay, you pass the lasagna
A-don't you get any on ya, you sloppy pig!
Have more ravioli
You-a get roly poly, a-nice and big
Like you cousin Luigi
Luigi, Luigi, capisce paisan?
Capisce paisan, capisce paisan?

La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!
La-lasagna!

Actually Weird Al's song was a parody of a Mexican folk song La Bamba. The song was popularised in the USA for the first time in 1958 by Ritchie Valens. Another version was recorded by Los Lobos in 1987 for a film by the same name as the song. Both were smash hits in America, from where Weird Al Yankovic's song came up, in their own times. Here are the links to these two numbers:

 



Musically good? May be. The initial bit of guitar quite catchy? Yes, I'll give that to you too. But far less exciting without all that cheese and meat choking your heart down, won't you agree?

Monday, May 27, 2013

'Coz what is this life/ If there's no chowmein?

Remember that wonderful neighbourhood joint where you used to go all the time? And then it shut down one fine morning and you began to wonder, what's the point of this life anyway? Well here's a wonderful number from the early 1950s recorded by The Gaylords that may resonate your feelings.

'I could cry all night in sorrow,
I could moan all day in pain,
'Coz the Chinaman gave the place up
And my life just ain't the same!'

Here's the link of the song: Chowmein | The Gaylords

Friday, May 24, 2013

The Calcutta Biryani


Biryani is one of the greatest cultural gifts of Islamicate culture to South Asia. In the Hindu or Buddhist kitchen, no example of a mixture of meat and rice is known. Jains are vegetarians, so there's no point talking about them in the first place. In larger parts of the subcontinent, the average Hindu upper caste person faints at the smell of onion or garlic, leave alone meat. The entirety of upper caste North India always looked down upon the Bengali brahman because of his fish-eating habits. Imagining anything close to the sublimity of the biryani exuding out of such a taboo-dominated kitchen is nothing but a day-dream. But even in the middling or lower castes, I wonder if any parallel of the meat-rice combination could have been known independently of an influence of the Islamicate kitchen. In the far south, in Christian and lower caste sections of Malayalis and Kannadas, there is a thriving tradition of preparing fabulous dishes by cooking meat and rice together. But with all due respect, that isn't biryani.



Biryani was invented in the North Indian military camp sometime around the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries. At the end of a hard day of marching or military operation, soldiers would probably get together, throw some meat in with the rice to save the labour of cooking separate dishes and prepare something for themselves. By the early-seventeenth century, biryani attained a certain degree of eliteness by virtue of being absorbed into the Mughal kitchen. Nuruddin Jahangir (r. 1605-1627), the fourth Mughal Padshah, writes in his memoirs Tuzuk-i Jahangiri: 'Arriving in Sultanpur at dawn I remained there till noon. By chance, at this place and hour the victorious [Mughal] army encountered that ill-fated band [the enemy]. Muizzu-l-mulk had brought biryani, and I was turning towards it with zest when the news of the battle was brought to me. Though I had a longing to eat the biryani, I immediately took a mouthful by way of augury and mounted, and without waiting for the coming up of men and without regard to the smallness of my force I went off in all haste.'



After Aurangzeb Alamgir's death in 1707, Mughal political authority crumbled. Among the multiple polities that emerged in South Asia around this time were three successor states founded by Mughal mansabdars. The Mughal Wazir, who was administering the subah of Awadh, and the subahdars of Bengal and Hyderabad – all declared independence in the eighteenth century. While all of their dynasties continued to function inside Mughal cultural paradigm for a long time to come, they also interacted with and assimilated elements of regional culture into their courtly life. The Mughal biryani took on a new life in each of these regional royal kitchens and by interacting with local culinary practices, took distinctly different paths. Consequently we now have three different types of the Mughal biryani in South Asia – the Lucknavi, the Hyderabadi and the Dhakai. The Hyderabadi biryani was doing fine until it lost its way somewhere down the line by opening its doors to curry pata. Dhaka, now the capital of Bangladesh, has preserved its tradition of the sublime kachchi biryani. It tastes entirely different from what we have now in India, and if you haven't visited Bangladesh yet, consider it to be a reason enough. There is also a most offensively atrocious dish that is served around Delhi by the name of biryani; but we need not dignify it with a discussion here.

Yes, that's the expression Dhakai kachchi biryani brings to your face!


When the English East India Company deposed Nawab Wajed Ali Shah in 1856, they packed his bags and sent him to Calcutta. The sad Nawab came along singing “Jab chhod chaley Lucknow nagari/tab haal adam par kya guzri?” and settled down with his entourage in Metiaburuj (meaning 'clay bastion' in Bengali) in the English port-city. With him, the tradition of the Lucknavi biryani also reached Calcutta. What remained behind in Lucknow, judging by what you get in the old parts of the town today, was fantastic stuff. It was perhaps a tad more spicy than how its successor in the new imperial capital of South Asia would turn out to be. Here it took on a new life. The Calcutta biryani came to find its ideal companions in the boiled egg and the boiled whole potato.



In Calcutta, even neighbourhood joints are serving biryani these days, as are the different multi-cuisine mumbo jumbos. Obviously there is no reason to take them seriously. The headquarter of the city's biryani craft is the Muslim-dominated Park Circus-Mallick Bazaar area in South Calcutta. It houses several restaurants that serve quality biryani. The more famous ones are Shiraz and Rahmania in Mallick Bazaar, Zeeshan and Arsalan in Park Circus. Among these, Shiraz and Rahmania are really by-gone glories. Arsalan is the best among these joints. For some time now, the Arsalan biryani is among the best in the city. The suppleness of the meat, the aroma of the rice and the brilliant kabab accompaniments will surely make anybody's day. No wonder it has three outlets between Park Circus 7-Points Crossing and Park Street and more in other areas.



Further south, there are a couple of good joints around the Gariahat-Golpark area. The older ones, Hatari and Bedouin serve standard quality biryani. But two new joints are grabbing the limelight these days. One is Ta'aam, right next to Priya Cinema on Rashbihari Avenue. The other is Southern Aminia right next to Mouchak at Golpark (this one being named after the leading biryani joint of the past -- Aminia -- in the Esplanade area). Ta'aam may be a tad more expensive than the other places, but they make it more than worth your money. Also, the prices of biryani has increased quite a lot over the past 6/7 years. But in terms of the quality of meat, the subtlety of the taste and the aroma of the dish, these two places will leave you starstruck. If you are wondering when or where the hell these cropped up from, you are backdated buddy. You may call them upstarts, but I am telling you, the best biryani of the city is rolling out of their kitchens even as we speak.

Ta'aam

Some of the more upscale restaurants of the city, like Flame and Grill, Sigree and Barbeque Nation, also serve very good biryani. Much of their biryani is genuinely delicious, and the flavours are quite light and subtle. But for me, the unlimited tide of kababs that these places serve in the beginning of the buffet always spoils the biryani fun. By the time one reaches the biryani one is already struggling to make space in one's stomach by reshuffling the hurriedly gobbled kababs. In any case, the high price of the buffet means that for the average food-enthusiast, it can't be the everyday option.


Barring the Dhakai kachchi biryani, all this while we have been talking about mutton biryani (who eats chicken biryani anyway?). Beef biryani is considerably rare in Calcutta, although one gets it at the small Muslim-owned joints around the Park Circus area, like Nafeel or al-Habib. To be honest, they are not very good. However, the bloody best biryani I have ever had is in fact outside the city proper. It's on the railway station premises of Baruipur, a half-an-hour train ride from Sealdah. The place, called Asma, serves the most delicious beef biryani and beef chaanp in the world. You can't even begin to imagine how delicious it is, so don't waste your time. The rice is nothing extraordinary; in fact one may argue that Ta'am or Southern Aminia's rice is better. But their beef is the softest biryani meat I have ever had. The supple, succulent and tender beef is so good that it will make you want to sleep with it. The aroma of the beef spices up the entire rice and makes you want to brave the crowded trains of the Sealdah-Baruipur route day and night. If possible, catch a train and see for yourself what you have been missing on.


Recently the Calcutta biryani has also taken the national capital by storm. The Kolkata Biryani House at the Market 1 in CR Park, with its assortments of biryani, chaanp and rezala, is already a rage in the Bengali circles of South Delhi. Word in the street is that the research output of budding Bengali social scientists of the nearby Jawaharlal Nehru University has increased manifold since the opening of the joint.

One needs to acknowledge that given all the diversities of biryani traditions in South Asia (obviously not including the various pseudo-biryani traditions of the north and the south), there are rival claims to culinary greatness. Against this backdrop, we can either be tolerant and stupid and say that 'to each her own', or we can be brutal and truthful and admit that the Calcutta biryani is the greatest of all Mughal biryanis. The choice is yours.