Santha says: The 100-crore food brand in Hyderabad

July 10, 2014 09:12 pm | Updated November 28, 2021 08:48 pm IST

Tarkari Haleem. Photo: Nagara Gopal

Tarkari Haleem. Photo: Nagara Gopal

Forget food, apart from Charminar (the cigarette or monument??) nobody outside has heard of any brand from here. Now of course we have “world famous” biryani and our pearls but they are behind.

But Rs.100 crore?

Haleem

The preparations of this begins during the day and ends around dusk.

An expert keeps a close watch on the preparation as the dish needs continuous stirring. It is cooked on a low flame of firewood for 12 hours in a brick and mud kiln.

One or two men mix it thoroughly with large wooden sticks throughout its preparation, until it gets to a sticky-smooth consistency.

And then the Haleem is ready for the rest of us. And also coincides with the evening prayers.

Please note that this hard-worked concoction is purely a male bastion: how nice. Can’t think of any domestic food solely made by men, can you?

During the month of Ramzan these haleem kilns sprout up everywhere. This year there were some murmurs of pollution with too many fires etc but all the same there are kilns on opposite sides of busy junctions and all are doing good business. While it is the breaking of a fast for one community it is the time for feasting for all.

Fasting or feasting, all are happy with haleem. It is said that the denizens of Hyderabad almost do a haleem pubbing as it were and there are hot debates as to what and where are the best haleem places. In fact hundreds of young men find employment, all smartly dressed to guide cars and take orders for takeaways or for eating from cars.

This is a recent but very welcome institution. Some decades ago haleem was as rare as say Marag Soup. All this is rendered so tasty because the people behind cook with Passion, Patience and Perseverance.

All P3s are needed to cook well. It used to be said that one has to love food to cook well and all cooks (especially women) were fat. But today you have actual vegetarians cooking the most alarmingly tasty non-vegetarian food. The rest of us are maybe tasting it so often throughout the preparation that by the end of it may be so satiated that we no longer care whether it’s perfect or not.

The P3s are especially needed to make Hyderabad’s famous but now almost extinct Nimish.

“The success of the light-as-air Nimish depends on such intangibles as dewfall” on a winter night and some say full moon. And also very good milk straight from the buffalo. Of course you also need to trust the man behind the buffalo.

I heard about an astute lady who decided to co own a buffalo. However she seemed to have bought the first half of the buffalo as apart from feeding it the milk was never there by the time it came to milking the buffalo!

Very unlike people who own different legs of a race horse!

(Santha John is founder, director Coachlife. Email: santha.john@coachlife.asia

www.coachlife.asia)

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