The Chef Bringing Lost Mewari Marvels Back On Menus

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. 

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.”