Therefore, we clearly have at least a one-and-a half-millennia-old predecessor to the Wild Muntjac Biryani served at Karam Sethi’s Gymkhana restaurant in London! Sita, however, wasn’t using beef, but fresh deer meat hunted by Ramachandra. Sometime during the 800 years span, between 400 BC and 400 AD, during which the Valmiki Ramayan was being composed and recomposed, the grand trio of meat, rice and ghee had developed to a more elaborate recipe including vegetables and spices. Achaya informs us, ‘Rama and Lakshmana while in exile in the Dandakaranya forest hunted animals for the pot, and a favourite dish of Sita was rice cooked with deer meat, vegetables and spices, called mamsabhutadana. It is difficult to imagine with such spices available, why gastronomes of those years would not experiment with the 'grand trio’ recipe as well.įor sure they continued enjoying this very special dish through ages. Ginger, onion, garlic, cinnamon, clove and bay leaf, for example, have been clearly mentioned in the Charaka Samhita of the 2 nd century AD. After all, most of the spices that chefs use for today’s Biryani in specialty restaurants have been widely available in this subcontinent for ages. In a land where recipes for the same food change every 50 km, our ancestors must have experimented with this grand combination. Just boiled beef, rice and ghee could not have kept them happy for years. People of this subcontinent, however, have always been gourmands. When such opportunities came, people simply gorged on it. It would therefore be safe to assume that opportunities to cook beef and rice with ghee must have been rare. As much as they loved beef in all forms, cows and bulls were also sacrificed only on special occasions.
It could not have been, simply because ever since the Aryan speaking people had taken to agriculture they had realised the value of the bovine species. It was not a staple food of the common people in those days. It also indicates that this food item has had its very special place in the kitchen since ancient times. Hence, we will take this Brihadaranyaka Shloka to be the first known rudimentary recipe of that immortal food, which has come to be known as ‘biryani’ in this subcontinent. It is still not known whether the bearded old man of Harappa was born out his parents’ fascination for such a recipe. Hence, over the next last 3000 years we Indians have been lapping up this basic recipe with unmatched zeal, albeit changing it to our tastes, religious customs and availability of ingredients.
Utterances of the Upanishads are supposed to spell pure wisdom. Then they would be able to produce such a son.) Brihadaranyaka Upanishada, Chapter VI, Brahmana IV, Shloka 18.
(He who wishes that a son should be born to him who would be a reputed scholar, frequenting the assemblies and speaking delightful words, would study all the Vedas and attain a full term of life, should have rice cooked with the meat of a vigorous bull or one more advanced in years, and he and his wife should eat it with clarified butter. For such a recipe you must refer to the following shloka:Ītha ya icchet putro me pandito vigeetah samitimgamah susshrooshitaam vaacham bhaashitaa jaayeta sarvaan vedaan anubraveeta sarvam-aayur-iyaaditi maa(m)s-audanam paachayitvaa sarpishmantam-asneeyaataam-eeswarau janayitvaa aukshena vaarshabhena vaa|| These are not the basic ingredients of the excellent Beef Biryanis served across the Indian subcontinent.