Did Akbar Only Drink Gangajal And Ate Rice Coated In Silver Oil?
By Slurrp Team
Emperor Akbar was known for his culinary eccentrics
These habits actually hugely influenced Mughlai cuisine and the culinary landscape of India!
Historians note that the daily meals were planned by the hakim (royal physician), to include medicinally beneficial ingredients
For eg, each rice grain in biryani was coated in silver oil - to aid digestion, and it was also an aphrodisiac!
Another food writer notes that the palace chickens were hand fed with meals flavoured with saffron and rosewater, and massaged daily with musk oil and sandalwood!
Akbar's royal kitchens apparently had over 400 cooks from all over India and Persia, apart from a treasurer, a storekeeper, a clerk, and an army of tasters!
Ice was bough daily from the Himalayas by an elaborate system of courier
Akbar was a vegetarian thrice a week and drank only Gangajal!
He apparently cultivated his own kitchen garden which was nourished with rosewater so that the vegetables would be fragrant.