Pushpesh Pant is an academic, food critic and historian. He studied History, International Relations, and Law in Nainital and Delhi. He retired from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) after a long teaching career spanning four decades. He has written over fifty books on cuisine, culture, religion, and foreign policy in English and Hindi. Pant is a regular contributor to English and Hindi newspapers and periodicals. He also anchors TV programmes and produces documentaries from time to time.
<p>Who is an ‘asli Dilliwala’—a true-blue Delhizen—and what is his cuisine?</p><p>To answer this question, Pushpesh Pant, food historian and raconteur</p><p>par excellence, takes us on a culinary journey from the Mahabharata’s</p><p>Indraprastha—the first city of Delhi—to the present day, through the</p><p>Sultanate, the Mughal Empire and the British Raj.</p><p>On this fascinating food trip, we savour the rich qormas and kebabs of</p><p>Shahjahanabad and the Shepherd’s Pie and mutton cutlets of ‘angrezon ki</p><p>Dilli’, with a light snack in between of papri or undiya, washed down with bael</p><p>ka sherbet in a good Baniya home. But that is not all. As Delhi’s population</p><p>grew to include migrants from across the country, so did its culinary</p><p>repertoire. The Dilliwala of today is as likely to enjoy Calcutta-style street</p><p>food—chops, cutlets, puchka and jhaalmuri—in the south Delhi colony of C.R.</p><p>Park, as he is to relish a berry pulao and dhansak at the Parsi Anjuman. And</p><p>what better tiffin than idli-dosa-sambar from the South Indian outlets that dot</p><p>the city? From a city identified largely with Punjabi and Mughlai food—butter</p><p>chicken and biryani—Delhi is now a melting pot of cuisines ranging from</p><p>Kashmiri, Bengali and Bihari, to Andhra, Naga and ‘Indian-Chinese’.</p><p>Pushpesh Pant also tracks the growth of the city’s restaurant culture, from</p><p>wayside dhabas and McDonalds to high-end restaurants that can compete with</p><p>the best in the world—justifying its claim to being a global food capital where</p><p>virtually every cuisine can be found, including Japanese, Thai, Mediterranean</p><p>and Korean.</p><p>Drawing on a wealth of historical records and literary sources, Pushpesh Pant</p><p>has written a delightful, anecdotal account of the life and food habits of each</p><p>period of Delhi’s history, that is as much a feast to be enjoyed, as the food he</p><p>describes.</p>
