The glory that was Awadh

The famous Tunday Kebabs of Lucknow. Photo: iStock

The story of Lucknow’s Tunday Kababi is oft-repeated in food circuits and among regular diners as well. The popular lore talks of a gifted one-handed kababchi (master of the grilled kabab), Haji Murad Ali (aka Tunday mian; Tunday meaning one-hand; mian is an Urdu title of respect), creating melt-in-mouth kababs for a king who had lost his teeth but not his will to eat. This story, however, is not completely accurate. But before we dive into the real story of Tunday Kababi and what makes it so iconic, a little history of Lucknow and the evolution of its cuisine, of which the galawat ke kabab is an intrinsic part, is in order.

‘To understand the story of galawat ke kabab—not galawati kabab as people tend to call them, but kabab made with galawat, the tenderizer (papaya in this case), that gives them the name—one needs to go back in history to understand why the kababs of Lucknow are so delicate and different from their counterparts across India,’ journalist Mehru Jaffer, who is from Lucknow and has worked extensively on the region’s history, tells me when I talk to her about Tunday Kababi. Jaffer goes on to outline the complex yet little-known history of the nawabs of Awadh, the region that lies around the present-day cities of Ayodhya, Lucknow, and Kanpur. The nawabs were connoisseurs of fine food and patrons of high culture. Of Persian descent, they had inherited the great taste of their forefathers, and it was under their reign that Awadh became the centre of arts, crafts, music, poetry, and architecture and was often compared to Persia and Byzantium.

‘Following the Treaty of Allahabad in 1765, when the nawab of Awadh, Shuja-ud-Daula, was no longer allowed to have an army, he built himself a palace in Faizabad. With ample wealth and time on hand, the nawabs, who possessed pedigree, began patronizing arts and culture in the kingdom,’ explains Jaffer. With time, Shuja-ud-Daula’s son, Asaf-ud-Daula, known as the ‘Architect of Lucknow’, moved the capital of Awadh from Faizabad to Lucknow. This town, which was once just a dusty granary of the Mughals, was transformed into a cultural paradise. This rise of the nawabs of Awadh and the city of Lucknow coincided with the fall of the Mughals and the decline of Delhi. And so, some of the finest dancers, singers, poets, and cooks of Delhi, who suddenly found themselves without a patron, migrated to Lucknow. This further cemented the city’s place in the cultural landscape of India. It was then, sometime in the eighteenth century, that the cuisine of Awadh reached its zenith.

To impress their patrons, the khansamas, bawarchis, and rasoiyas (khansamas, informs Jaffer, were the head of the kitchen and supervised everything; the bawarchis and rasoiyas were line chefs who did most of the cooking) innovated dishes that challenged their skills and knowledge. The food served at the homes of nobility became a symbol of their wealth and determined their position in society. According to word on the street, the unique dishes that were cooked in Lucknow during the late eighteenth century included exquisite creations like the motia pulav (a preparation of the finest rice and meat shaped into small balls and coloured with egg-white so they glimmered like real pearls), goat mussalam (an entire goat was stuffed with chicken, which in turn was stuffed with a quail, and the quail with minced meat and egg, after which the whole thing was roasted on an open fire till it was cooked through), and various types of qormas, kalias, and kababs that had the most complex recipes, unique spice blends, and delicate flavours.

While the nawabs and their wealth are long gone, these flavours have prevailed. Galawat ke kabab is just one of the many examples of the culinary heritage that Lucknow has held onto. Made with fine mincemeat (originally buffalo, but now also mutton), the kabab is known for its unique texture, thanks to the galawat that turns the meat almost pâté-like. Tunday Kababi has been the flag bearer of this culinary legacy for over 118 years.

Excerpted with permission from India’s Most Legendary Restaurants edited by Ruth Dsouza Prabhu. @2024 Aleph