Tracing Biryani

Global connections over fragrant rice

I have always enjoyed looking at global connections of how cultures interact. For my course, Remapping Area Studies, I looked at how the beloved Biryani came to be. You will find the readings I went through for the assignment at the end of the post.

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The Biryani Connection

If the city of Hyderabad, India is known for one thing, it is its famous Dum Biryani. With nearly forty versions of the dish, Hyderabadi biryani is said to have drawn influences from not only around India, but also from Iran and Persia given its location in the central parts of India. There are several styles of biryani seen across India, varying according to region, but most often, the variety found in Hyderabad is considered the “real” biryani by chefs across the country. I will attempt to trace the “biryani” connection across geographical boundaries to see how far this dish has travelled to come to Hyderabad in India. While I cannot cover the expanse of biryani varieties available across this geographical space, it shall attempt to show how the dish has changed with regional ingredients and influences, and what has not changed such as its name. Not much work has been done on this topic and thus one is dependent on non-scholarly sources for recipes and community history.

The word Biryani is said to have been derived from the word “birinj”, a Persian word for rice (Sen, 2004). Other sources state that the word birinj comes from the dish biryani while birinj itself may have been a derivative of the Persian word “virinzi” for rice or the Sanskrit word “vrihi” for rice.  Another theory states that biryani may have been a derivative of “biryani” or “beriyan” from the Persian words for “to roast” or to “fry”(Collingham, 2006). Generally speaking, biryani is made by frying onions and meat with in spices before layering it with rice and cooking them together.

Biryani itself is a spicy dish of meat and rice. The term seems to been in existence since the thirteenth century. Another rice dish called pulao is said to be similar to biryani and is said to be older in terms of its usage in India. According to historical records such as the Ain-i-Akbari (the biography of the Mughal emperor, Akbar) there was no distinction made between Biryani and Pulao till much later in time. Biryani is often made with parboiled rice layered and steamed with meat, while pulao is rice cooked with meat till fully steamed (Achaya, 2014).  

There are two types of Biryanis – kacchi and pakki. The Hyderabad variety seen in the paper is the kacchi variety where the meat is added to the dish raw and cooked along with the parboiled rice.

There is no clear idea of the origins of biryani in India and therefore we are dependant on speculations on where it came from and how it was adopted into the region with local ingredients or tailored to local tastes.  Due to the varieties of Biryanis across Muslim centres in India, including Delhi, Lucknow, and Hyderabad (influenced by the Mughal court), and other states having Muslim populations coming in from trade such as Tamil Nadu having five different varieties, along with Kerala, Telangana and Karnataka.

Biryani is said to have first appeared in the Mughal court under the rule of Akbar. Lizzie Collingham, in her work “Curry, A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors” looks at the possible development of the dish in India being a synthesis of the Persian pilaf which was soaked rice and meat cooked in clarified butter or some form of fat till it was fragrant with the more spice based meaty dishes of India. Other historians claim that the dish was brought to India by the Mughals as the term birinj or beriyan existed in the Persian language(Collingham, 2006).

Lizzie Collingham’s book includes a map showcasing the possible journey and development of what is known today as Biryani from Baghdad in Persia of that time to India. The mentions of pilaf and its increasingly spiced and greasier forms seem closer to Central and South Asia. Collingham’s work is based off piecing together recipe books and travelogues to substantiate her thesis which proves to us how little we know about the origins of this dish which seems to have a version across Western Asia to Central and South Asia (Collingham, 2006).

Pratibha Karan on the other hand points to biryani being of Mughal origin which took shape from the Arab pilaf, brought in not by land routes, but rather through sea trade by traders from the west. This dish was easy to prepare in large quantities in a single pot and was thus used for feeding armies and was thus often associated with the militia. The ingredients used to make this were available regionally and was put into a pot and sealed with dough trap the steam (Karan, 2017).

Karan’s theory also explains the spread of different type of biryanis across the southern parts of India. Trade with Arab and Western Asian nations was not only through land routes, but also through sea routes with ports dotted across the southern states which were largely untouched by the Mughal rule. This trade network could have led to the rise of biryani in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka (Karan, 2017).

Some historians such as Colleen Taylor Sen dates the history of biryani to before the Mughal rule and to the Sultanate rule where biryani was consumed during weddings claiming that the term biryani comes from a Turkish origin of “biriyan” which means to roast, boil, grill, or bake (Sen, 2015).

Much of the history of biryani’s origins are speculative. This is also apparent with the lack of scholarly work on the history of biryani. While many sources look at recipes, the connections between expanses of geographical spaces are very limited. What we can conclude is that biryani did come from the Islamic community in India and thus, it was not just Islam that travelled to India through trade routes, but also food cultures which merged with local food cultures.

Due to the lack of conclusive sources to determine a definite connection, it becomes the task of the writer to look at similarities between rice recipes across western to south Asia. Collingham’s work is most thorough in seeing the development of biryani from the Persian pilaf and the Indian kichadi and thus seems to lay the framework for understanding the “biryani” connection. But biryani has also become popular outside India, so how did the idea travel outwards is a question worth looking into.

Let us take the basic recipe of a Hyerabadi kacchi biryani and see what other modern-day countries that fall along Collingham’s route serve biryani and how they are similar or different from the biryani commonly seen or asked for in Hyderabad.

Kacchi biryani from Hyderabad involves soaked basmati rice, spices and goat meat, the goat meat is marinated in yoghurt, raw papaya and spices layered over the parboiled basmati rice before being sealed in a dough sealed container and cooked over a low flame. The cooking technique is said to have come from the Mughal court. Variations of this include chicken as a more expensive meat (Anand, 2012), but also Kalyani biryani which is from the same region but is made with buffalo meat and is catered to the lower class and caste of people where the meat is more accessible. The meat is flavoured with heavily with cumin, and coriander powder. While it contains onion like the Hyderabadi biryani, it also contains tomato and is cooked till thick before being cooked with the rice. Kalyani biryani is said to have come from the Kalyani dynasty in Bidar which was a smaller Nawab dynasty which married into the Nizam family that ruled Hyderabad (Shepherd, 2020). The dishes are served with a mirchi ka salan which is boiled green chilli in a gravy and boorani which is yoghurt with tomatoes or other vegetables (sometimes also known as raita in other variations) (Sen, 2015).

As we move further north to the capital of the Mughal empire, Delhi, we see there is no real standard recipe for biryani as it varies across the city. There are locality-based biryani’s available across Delhi with no standard method of cooking or preparation. Most recipes are done by families and thus, vary.

As we move out of India and towards Pakistan, we see Sindhi Biryani being the nation’s most popular dish. Similar to the pilafs of Persia, Sindhi biryani is one of the first few times we see the introduction of nuts and dried fruit such as plums being introduced to the dish. Being a pakki biryani, the dish is containing a large amount of green chilli, onion and tomato paste, and potatoes which make it different from the Hyderabadi style. The dish is not dum cooked either (Khondkar, 2018).

As we move further away from Hyderabad, to Afghanistan, we see there is a dish by the name of biryan. This does not fit into the traditional style of biryani preparation, but still has elements of a spiced goat meat cooked together with rice. Often described as a midway between a pilaf and biryani, the dish uses the most amount of dry fruit with a great deal of raisins added to the dish and least meat, often minced into small pieces. The dish is also most often not served with as many condiments as biryanis in Hyderabad (Kumrar, 2016).

As we move further west, we see a shift in the manner in which biryani is prepared and approached as a dish. This is more often than not due to the regionally available ingredients – dry fruits are a greater luxury in the Deccan and are less obtainable than in the northern parts of India. Additionally, we see that meat, particularly goat meat is used across all dishes. This may be due to the fact that the meat does not offend either Hindu or Muslim sentiments, or due to its availability (Collingham, 2006).

We see the biryani in West Asia mostly popularized by Assyrians and Kurds. There are no scholarly sources tracing the history of biryani found in Iraq. But as seen in recipe websites, the Kurdish style is made of meat, most often chicken cooked in saffron with fried onions, potatoes, almonds, and raisins. Many varieties also include vermicelli (some versions of biryanis found in Hyderabad also use vermicelli). This is usually accompanied with a tomato sauce called maraq with the dish (Jeehan, 2022).

In Iran, the term beriyan leads to many different dishes. Beriyan from Iran, which was Persia during the Mughal rule was a meat dish, often lamb which is spiced and fire roasted or fried till soft. It is served with bread and sometimes topped with almonds. More often than not, a quick search for biryani or biryani in Iran points to a fried meat dish with bread rather than a familiar rice dish to South Asians (Nejhad, 2018). Some non-credible sources claim there is a rice dish which came up under the Safavid Dynasty by the name for Beryian Polo which was made with lamb or chicken marinated with yogurt, herbs, dried fruit such as raisings, prunes, or pomegranate seeds which was cooked in an oven and served with rice (ifood.tv, n.d). This seems to point more to a similar cooking process as the beriyan of Iran, but rather than being served with bread, rice is the chosen carbohydrate.

After a long journey from east to west and west to east, the pilaf of Persia which is rice cooked and meat cooked in stock turns into the spiced, meaty biryani found in India. It sheds the inclusion of dried fruit and nuts on its way east to cater to the regional preferences and availabilities. Nonetheless, the linguistic connections are still very apparent and it can only be credited to the introduction of Islamic culture into India. While this connection has not been as explored as it should, it is rather interesting to note that the biryani, a dish given to India by Islamic culture assimilating into local cultures is one of the most ordered dishes in the country where political forces continue to try to wipe out Islamic identities.

Maybe the biryani connection is just stronger.

References

About Iranian biryani. ifood.tv. (n.d.). Retrieved January 1, 2023, from https://ifood.tv/asian/iranian-biryani/about

Achaya, K. T. (2014). A historical dictionary of indian food. Oxford University Press.

Anand, J. (2012). Tucking into the biryani: Hyderabadi style. Available at SSRN 2045991. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2045991

Collingham, E. M. (2006). Biryani : The Great Mughals. In Curry: A tale of cooks and conquerors (pp. 13–47). essay, Oxford University Press.

Jeehan. (2022, May 12). Kurdish biryani - Iraqi biryani recipe. Sourandsweets. Retrieved January 1, 2023, from https://sourandsweets.com/kurdish-biryani-iraqi-biryani-recipe/

Karan, P. (2017). Biryani. Google Books . Penguin Books. Retrieved January 1, 2023.

Khondkar , M. (2018, May 31). A case on the traditional Bangladeshi cuisine brand - Haji Biryani. Impact Journals. Retrieved January 1, 2023, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mubina-Khondkar/publication/325779765_A_Case_on_the_Traditional_Bangladeshi_Cuisine_Brand_-_Haji_Biryani/links/5b234abb458515270fcf7059/A-Case-on-the-Traditional-Bangladeshi-Cuisine-Brand-Haji-Biryani.pdf

Kumar, R. (2016, September 9). प्राइम टाइम : क्या-क्या अलग करेंगे बिरयानी से? वीडियो - हिन्दी न्यूज़ वीडियो एनडीटीवी ख़बर. NDTV Khabar. Retrieved January 1, 2023, from https://ndtv.in/videos/prime-time-what-will-be-separate-from-biryani-430689?yt

Nejhad, S. S. (2018, September 3). Beryani - A Taste From Isfahan. TAPPersia. Retrieved January 1, 2023, from https://www.tappersia.com/

Sen, C. T. (2004). Food culture in India. Greenwood Press.

Sen, Colleen Taylor. Feasts and Fasts : A History of Food in India, Reaktion Books, Limited, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/soas-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1864179.

Shepherd, K. I. (2020). Introduction. No Democracy Without Beef: Ambedkar, Identity and Nationhood. In Beef, Brahmins, and Broken Men (pp. 11-64). Columbia University Press.