langda khan
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^doesn't look to appetizing tbh but then it was the Portuguese who introduced both the Tomato and the Potato to India.
The tomato arrived in India by the way of Portuguese explorers, in the 16th century.
Tomato - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
The Portuguese introduced potatoes, which they called 'Batata', to India in the early seventeenth century when they cultivated it along the western coast. British traders introduced potatoes to Bengal as a root crop, 'Alu'. By the end of the 18th century, it was cultivated across northern hill areas of India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_potato
Half of our subzeez and daals etc will vanish if we remove the tamatar and alu
Anywho, we owned it, and have made it our own since.. haven't we ?
The Biriyani is most definitely "muslim" food in a sense. Those long caravans were just looking for a good hearty meal and sort of stumbled upon this way of doing rice.. at least that's how the story goes. Again, like with the humble potato and tomato, that style of cooking evolved eventually to what we now know as a biriyani. In present day India, there are 3 major schools of it.. Lucknowi, Hyderabadi, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Kolkotta.. they do versions in TN and Kerala too with that fat small rice.. delish and different spices, but I prefer the long grain basmati versions of the north.
Biryani comes from Birinj which is a Middle Persian word. Pahlavi or Parsik, Middle Persian predates the birth of Islam, Sassanian times. There is nothing muslim about Biryani. Ditto falooda. The Mughals got it to India, by most accounts. Biryani cooked dum style in pots was easy to transport on horseback for invading marching armies on a campaign. And dry so no messy leaks. A perfect balanced meal of carbs, fats and proteins, it was all about military logistics. As was the birth of Urdu. A garrison dialect between the Mughals and their Indian recruits.
Fun fact that can be confirmed by Iranians here, if any. Iranians no longer have anything similar to rice and meat based biryani as we know it, but instead there it's morphed into meat cooked inside dough like our rotis. Something like a kathi roll in all probability.
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