Galouti in the genes

I cannot believe my eyes - in a city where it is rare to get that great rich taste of biryani that simultaneously blazes your tongue, yet soothes your nerves and appetite - I was staring at a plate of galouti kebabs. 

Aficionados of Awadhi appetizers, or maniacs of Mughlai meals would be frantically shaking their heads in disbelief as what I had come upon serendipitously is often considered the holy grail of kebabs. And if every dish had a story, the Galouti’s would be a thumping Booker prize winner. Legends have it that the last nawabs of Awadh - Asaf-ud-daula and Wajid Ali had spoilt teeth, thanks to a continuous consumption of tobacco. Their appetite for meat though, thankfully, could not be spoiled. They would therefore invite khansamas or cooks from all over Lucknow to churn out the softest kebabs possible. The result was the galouti kebab - ‘that which melts in the mouth’ - made from pounded and finely minced meat, suffused with aromatic spices and fried delectably in ghee. Even the khansama who perfected this has a story of his own - he apparently fell from a roof and broke his arm - making him a handicap, or tunday. But that didn’t stop him from belting out the mouth-melting meat morsels. The outcome - Tunday kebabi won Masterchef Lucknow hands on, and was honoured with royal patronage making him an instant sensation. Two centuries later, the recipe has not been lost, and the dish is still a sensation, not just nationally but globally. One bite of the kebab, and not just my taste buds, my memory cells get fired up to wake up from its dormancy!

I go back to the days when I could wake up in the middle of night, snack on a kebab-train of galoutis, and then maybe do an Oliver Twist and ask for more. I was then studying in Lucknow, and despite an awesome cafeteria, couldn’t help sneaking out for the delightful kebabs, once or twice a week. The scenarios was a common one - my kebab comrades / gormandizers-in-arms / galouti gourmands - whatever you call us (And yes, we should have started an eat club with any of these monikers), would come in first people at 8pm when the campus mess would open. On bad days, we would eat thick chicken curry, on good days, kingly portions of chicken tandoori. After ravaging the food in 15 minutes, we would stare at each other, waiting who would first raise the topic, and commit the cardinal sin of gluttony. The moment the K-word would be uttered, we would grab a two wheeler, and zoom to the city, 14 km away to either Tunday’s or Dastarkhwan, the twin towers of kebab contentment. We didn’t ask for much - just a couple of plates of galouti per head, aided with soft, chewy roomali rotis, alongside julienned pickled onions with a small portion of achar. And then just a portion of mutton biryani. Or two. Washed with a fountain of ever-flowing chilled Thums-up. And then a couple of super-sweet kalkatta paan - one to gulp, and one to savour the taste. And sometimes, one for the bike ride back. Well, campus life was demanding, this was the least we could put up a fight. And that was life in Lucknow! Mind you, the eateries I am talking of were no fancy Michelin starred restaurants - these were plain old dingy rooms packed with people, their soot covered warm lamps taking you back to life in the 1970s. And yet, what a sensory experience it was! Full of din and noises, overpacked with people, the acrid smell of burnt charcoal permeating the small rooms, and all in the sweltering heat of a 40 degree summer or a 5 degree winter - in other words, a world of extremes, stretching you, choking you and then teaching you that life buzzes at the periphery of your own borders of normalcy. 

These by-lanes of Lucknow actually taught me a lot - it made me the biryani-snob that I am today, so much so that I can go to the best restaurant in town and yet snigger at my friends that their so-called famous biryani is ‘rice in chicken curry’- that they need to go to any ordinary eatery in Lucknow or Calcutta to restart from kindergarten. Lucknow made me realize you don’t need money to live - rather eat like a king. The food wouldn’t cost much - after all it was meant for the common man to have a communal dinner at the end of day, and we are not even talking of indulgences. Finally, you might cringe at the noise, the smells, the dirt and dust - but these made me realize that the taste of food doesn’t start or stop at the taste buds. The spicy food, along with the charcoaled ambiance, the like-minded company, the calloused pilgrimage, the summer sweat and the small-town cacophony  together fire away at the mind, to create  a sensory overwhelmia that knocks you down, yet makes you keep asking for more. There is a reason why polished cutlery and bow-tied attendants are good, but fail to rattle the mind - sometimes the art of eating must also turn raw and primeval, not in etiquette but in intensity to really make a mark on a savage species that used to find satisfaction in clubbing a mammoth and steaking its meat for dinner. 

With such food habits, a friend had once commented that at that rate, we were filling galouti in our genes. Indeed, for years after Lucknow, when I would work in Mumbai or go home in Calcutta, I would wander in the streets in search of my Dastarkhwan. They didn’t disappoint - Calcutta in a way was mini-Lucknow. When the last nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah was exiled to Calcutta’s Metiabruj by the East India Company, he had brought with him his entourage of chefs to keep doling out his kebabs. Awadhi food thus got infused with Calcuttan cuisine, and the maach-bhat people of Bengal rediscovered their love for biryani. (I say rediscover because Bengal had a Nawab of its own and was once one of the strongest jagirs of the Mughal world - there was definitely a strong Mughal influence in its food akin to Hyderabad and Aurangabad, but how the food scene would have been today though without Wajid Ali is anyone’s guess.  also use Mughlai interchangeably with Awadhi though the latter came later and was blended with Kashmiri and Hyderabadi elements as well). Nizams and Aminiya today hold that mantle among many other champions in Calcutta. Even metropolitan Mumbai is not far behind. Walk here, loiter there, and you will stumble upon Persian Durbar, Luckys, Kareems or a Delhi Durbar, whose kebabs will make you cry, some out of spiciness, others out of gourmet kebabiyan love. I also cannot help remember a place called Kakori House very close to my office in Dadar, that came the closest to the galoutis I had in Lucknow. Following the days of this discovery, there was a ‘strange’ increase in me working long hours and staying back at the office, ordering food from Kakori (while my long hours would ensure my projects would be billed for my food). As the saying went in Oudh, when life gives you a kebab…

Back to my present, remembering all these, I tear the fluffy roomali roti and break away a piece of the tender galouti. I add a piece of onion, use the pudina chutney and lo, there are magical sparks serenading the night sky. The flavours, texture, spicy blend - it’s all there, I thank my good stars. My friend can understand there is a spark in my eyes.

‘You really love this, it seems,’ he asks.

I nod sagely, the plate of kebabs disappearing fast.

‘Have you not had this back in India?’ I ask. 

He shakes his head, ‘No, kebabs I have had, but this is different. This is brilliant! What was the name again?’

Brilliant it is indeed, I concur sagely with a nod. But I stay quiet and allow both of us to enjoy the food.

We enjoy it both. Yet, I cannot help but feel that while my friend enjoys a plate of mortal food, I feast on a platter of ambrosial memories…

23rd August, 2021