The Foreign Hand in Our Food
As contemporary India attempts to restore its past glory, corrupting foreign influences on Indian culture are paid special attention. Food, surprisingly, escapes this attention.
Zahiruddin Mohammad Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, is a much reviled figure in India. In popular memory, he is remembered as a cruel conqueror responsible for many atrocities, the most infamous being the destruction of a temple at Ayodhya. It is common to view historical figures either in black or white. Once painted in black by history, the taint is almost impossible to wash off. Babur’s image as a man of the sword is so emblematic that it is often forgotten that he wielded an equally impressive pen. Baburnama, Babur’s memoirs, are among the finest pieces of writing by any historical figure. His writing is elegant and the poetry that intersperses his memoirs betrays a man of remarkable sensitivity. The purpose of this article, however, is not to deliberate upon Babur’s literary merits.
A reference to Babur may appear a peculiar way to begin an article on the history of foreign influences on Indian food. He is relevant to the topic because Baburnama, which covers an astonishing range of topics, records in great detail the fruits and vegetables that grew in India during Babur’s time. Most that find mention in the text continue to be consumed in India today. However, what stands out are the names that are missing from this comprehensive list. It is unimaginable today to think of Indian food without potatoes, tomatoes, green chilies, red chilies, and corn, and yet none of these pervasive foods find a reference in Babur’s memoirs.
The reason for their absence in Babur’s list is simply that these plants are not of Indian origin and were introduced well after his reign. Babur’s reign roughly coincides with the discovery of the Americas by Europeans. This discovery was to have a profound and lasting impact on the culinary habits of the world, including India. All the mentioned crops are of American origin and owe their spread beyond their boundaries to Spanish and Portuguese conquerors. As contemporary India attempts to restore its past glory, corrupting foreign influences on Indian culture are paid special attention. Religion is a special target. Islam and Christianity, decidedly of foreign origin, are regarded particularly polluting. The English language is also sometimes targeted. Food, surprisingly, escapes the attention. The explanation for this could lie in ignorance. Potatoes, tomatoes, and chilies are regarded so ubiquitously Indian that their foreign origin would surprise most Indians.
The potato originated in the inhospitable terrain of the Andean mountains in Peru. For centuries potato was consumed only in this narrow region of South America till the arrival of the Spanish in South America in the 16th century. The Spanish were quick to take to potatoes and began to export them to Europe. It was first cultivated in Europe somewhere towards the end of the 16th century. Potato cultivation was slow to catch on but by the end of the 18th century, there was an explosive growth in its consumption.
Potato found its way into India from Europe. The first mention of potatoes in historical records in India is by Edward Terry in 1615. He was a chaplain to Sir Thomas Roe, the British Ambassador to the Mughal Court of Jehangir. Traveler, Fryer also records the cultivation of potatoes in Karnataka and Surat in 1675. Irfan Habib contends that the potato referred to in these accounts is actually the sweet potato and the real potato was introduced a little later. India in the seventeenth century was a magnet for European colonial powers and the records are conflicting on who first introduced potato in India. Some suggest it was the Portuguese who introduced it in Western India first. The Portuguese name for potato, batata, is still used in parts of the west hence lending some credence to this theory. Some other accounts credit British Missionaries with the introduction of potatoes. Irrespective of who first introduced potatoes in India, the credit for the spread of potato cultivation to large parts of the subcontinent almost entirely goes to the British who started cultivating it in large quantities at the beginning of the 19th century. If an Indian born in the early 1800s were to be transported to our dinner tables he would be confounded by our fetish for this tuber.
Tomatoes have a story similar to potatoes. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The wild species originated in the Andes Mountains of South America, probably mainly in Peru and Ecuador, and is thought to have been domesticated in pre-Columbian Mexico; its name is derived from the Náhuatl (Aztec) word tomati. The tomato was introduced to Europe by the Spanish in the early 16th century, and the Spanish and Italians seem to have been the first Europeans to adopt it as food.”
There is no definitive record of when exactly the tomato came to India but like most crops of South American origin, it found its way into India through Europeans. Its adoption in Indian cuisine seems to have been relatively recent as it was chiefly consumed by Europeans till the early 1900s.
Perhaps the most surprising case is that of chilies. Spicy Indian food is a very commonly used term. But it appears, before the Europeans introduced red and green chilies from South America into India, it was black pepper, which is indigenous to India, that lent Indian food its spicy flavor. Abul Fazl, chronicler of Akbar’s reign, in his Ain-i-Akbari records 50 recipes of Indian foods but not one makes any mention of red or green chilies. Even the Hindi words lal mirchi and hari mirchi are extensions of the word kali mirchi for black pepper. The spread of chilies could be attributed to their ability to grow with ease, unlike black pepper, in different climate zones across India.
There are other foods that we assume to be Indian but originated outside. Punjab’s fabled makki di roti and sarson ka saag is only half Indian. Corn comes from Mexico and is a venerated grain in the country. Groundnut originated in the Bolivian region of South America and it was first cultivated in India only around the 1850’s. Guava came from Peru and Papaya from Central America. According to K.T Acharya’s seminal work on Indian food, Sitaphal and Ramphal, varieties of custard apple, are also of South American origin. Indian Gods, it appears, are quite tolerant of foreign influences. They don’t mind lending their names to them.
We now return to Babur. One way to judge the importance of a historical figure is to gauge the impact he has on the present. By this criteria, Babur outperforms most other historical figures. Nearly 500 years after his death he continues to exercise an extraordinary influence on contemporary India. Babur’s General, Mir Baqi, razed a temple at Ayodhya to the ground in 1528 and built a mosque, the Babri Masjid, at the site. It is believed by many that the temple marked the birthplace of Lord Ram, a much-revered god-king. India’s ruling party BJP owes much of its political rise to Babur. A brilliantly corrosive campaign run by the Party made the Babri Masjid the very symbol of the 700 years of ‘evil Muslim’ reign. Masses were driven to a frenzy on the issue and in an extraordinary act of historical vengeance marauding Hindu mobs brought down the mosque in 1992. Much bloodshed followed the demolition of the mosque. BJP started campaigning for building a temple to Lord Ram at the same site. Its political fortunes rose spectacularly with this bloody campaign.
Amidst all this bitterness, a lesser-known fact about Babur gets obscured: that of his contribution to sweetening the Indian palate. Babur was an aesthete and missed the orderly gardens and fruits of his native Fergana. He went about energetically laying down gardens in India, a practice that was continued by his successors. Fruit trees and plants were central to these gardens and the Mughals can rightly be credited with bringing about a horticultural revolution in India.
Babur complains in the Baburnama “ There are no good horses…….., no grapes, musk melons or first-rate fruits ……. ”.This observation of Babur was not entirely correct. India did have native varieties of melons and grapes but their cultivation, perhaps because they were not “first-rate”, was not widespread. Babur brought some of the best musk-melon plants from Kabul and grape plants from Balkh to plant in the garden of Agra thus laying down a Mughal tradition of importing succulent varieties of fruits from Central Asia. This passion for gardens was passed on to his successors. Akbar encouraged horticulturists from Iran and Central Asia to migrate to India bringing with them varieties of their regions. Exotic varieties of Pomegranates, strawberries, and red cherries were brought in from Central Asia. The pineapple was imported from the Americas through the Portuguese. India’s horticultural landscape was altered completely.
Fruits from Babur’s native land have left behind a very sweet legacy. They have outlived the most visible remnant of Babur’s legacy, the Babri Masjid. They will also almost certainly outlive the bitterness of its demolishers.