What is lost when a dish is forgotten, or the recipe for it obscured beyond recall? What aspects of a region’s culture and history, the unique contours of its past, are blurred when food that stands at their crossroads is no longer prepared or consumed? It is in a bid to address intangible losses like these that Chef Love Mathur, of the HRH Group of Hotels at The City Palace, Udaipur, has been working towards reviving and recreating parts of Mewari cuisine that have fallen out of style or favour over the years.
Even in the diverse and rich Indian cuisine-scape, Mewar stands out for its traditional dishes and the time-honoured methods used in their preparation. Mewari cuisine encompasses the south-central region of Rajasthan — Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Pratapgarh, Rajsamand and other parts of Mewar. The epicenter remains Udaipur, where several of the cuisine’s most iconic dishes — including makki ki raab, makki ke dhokle, lilwa ka jhanjharia and gur ki laapsi — have originated. If winter greens are celebrated through specialties like sarson ki bhaji, palak, hari methi, hare matar and mogri, then meat finds its tribute in laal maans, jungli maans, maas ka soyeta, keema kaleji and maans ro khaato among others. Local produce, spices and cooking techniques are used to great effect in all these dishes.
But of course, not all dishes of Mewari cuisine continue to enjoy such renown. Many have undergone transformations over time or been relegated to the backburner because of cumbersome, time and labour-intensive cooking or because they no longer meet changing lifestyle needs. Among these are besan ki dhokli, and the local bread thotdi (unrefined, coarse wheat flour dipped in ghee, and served with meat), which Chef Mathur says is found only on the menu of “the royal family and at the Shiv Niwas Palace”. Another type of bread revived by the chef is paniya — made of maize flour wrapped in khakra leaves and cooked under live charcoal. “It is served with a rare Mewari delicacy — degchi ka sila (the degchi being a rounded, tapering brass cooking pot used for preparing dum dishes like mutton or big cuts of meat) — at the Shikarbadi Hotel,” Chef Mathur notes.
Mewari cuisine has specific techniques for ensuring food remains fresh and flavourful. A particularly useful method is called “khad”, used in dishes like khad kokada, where meat (chicken or mutton) is wrapped in khakra leaves and spices, then cooked on a mellow flame in a khad or underground pit. Also, despite Udaipur’s aridity, seasonal produce is both varied and abundant.
“There is enough supply of water to grow crops and seasonal vegetables, through rain as well as the nearby dam and lakes,” Chef Mathur explains, adding that his kitchen makes use of only locally grown vegetables and ingredients, from within a 100 km radius. “[Indigenous] vegetables like kachri, chilli and corn play a vital role in tenderising meat, and enhancing taste and volume.”
Even as dishes like jhakolma poori and chane ki dal, maans ka sula and kaleji ka raita found their stock dwindling, Mewari cooking techniques too were not immune to change. Cooking over charcoal or open wood fires has mostly been replaced with the far more prosaic pressure cooker on a gas stove. Some dishes are harder to revive than others. For instance, the paniya churio. (“I have only heard of but never tried making the paniya churio,” says Chef Mathur, of this dish made with crushed maize bread, jaggery and ghee.) Still others present a challenge but have been successfully brought back from obscurity nonetheless. Like the anjeer hare tamatar ki khatti meethi subji and aloo chutney wala which were historically prepared only in the palace kitchens. The exclusivity of the former was due to the cost of anjeer, making it quite unthinkable for commoners to use it as an ingredient in an everyday subji. Meanwhile, in Chef Mathur’s recreation, the aloo chutney wala gains a decadent edge with a stuffing of dry fruits and grated paneer.
What revivals like these also do, is make hitherto exclusive aspects of Mewari cuisine accessible to a vast swathe of food lovers. “Royal cuisine is fast becoming more accessible,” Chef Mathur agrees. “And a king’s feast is now prepared regularly, in kitchens across the country.”