For my birthday long years ago, my friends Indu and Chandru gave me a book that’s become my bible. It’s called A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food , and was first published in 1998 by chemist-turned-food historian K.T. Achaya. It’s a book you must read if you like your food and want to know more about it.
Now that tomatoes are in the news, you could delve into the fruit that originated in Mexico or Peru, went to Europe in 1550, and then became a rage in Italy. It came to India through England, perhaps around 1850. It was cultivated in India mainly for the British rulers, and there are early references of Bengalis and Burmans using it for their sour curries.
The book is full of such interesting nuggets. It tells you about open borders, and how many of the vegetables we love with a passion—potatoes, for instance—came from South America. And when you cook your aloo bhaji with oodles of green chilli, guess where the chilli came from. It originated in Mexico and Peru, and may have entered India soon after the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama.
Food, music, photography
In 1563, it was first mentioned in Indian literature. “I saw you green, then turning redder as you ripened, nice to look at and tasty in a dish, but too hot if an excess is used. Saviour of the poor, enhancer of good food,” sang Purandara Dasa (1480-1564), the 16th century saint-musician.
For someone who did such seminal work on the origins of food, strangely not much is known about Achaya. And what a character he was, going by the accounts of his friends and colleagues. I have a friend whose family was close to Achaya. They called him ‘Doc’ and said he had the most amazing collection of music. He was a connoisseur of Carnatic and Western classical music and the friend recalls seeing in his house old records in the original voices of Tagore and Gandhi.
What we do know about him is that Thammu Achaya was a keen photographer. He was born in 1923 in Kollegal, Karnataka; graduated in chemistry from Presidency College in the then Madras; went to the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru; and worked in a number of institutes. He also went to the University of Liverpool, worked in Hyderabad and Mysuru, and finally settled down in Bengaluru, where he died in 2002.
Elephant in the room
As we quarrel over meats and what we should eat and not eat, I found some interesting bits in the book about various kinds of meats that Indians ate. Iguana, a large lizard, was eaten both in the north and south, and is mentioned in the Ramayana . Tamil Sangam literature speaks of “iguana red meat big with ova resembling chank shell beads”. Elephant meat was eaten by ascetics in Buddhist times. And 12th century literature lists mice as edible, especially those that live in fields near rivers. Porcupine is mentioned in the Ramayana as a food item. I have eaten porcupine and recall it wasn’t bad at all, though Neil Diamond did turn it into quite a bad song.
I hear that Achaya himself ate light but enjoyed his food. I wish I had met him. But then, because of his book which I go through almost every day, it seems as if I did know him.
The writer, who grew up on ghee-doused urad dal and roti, now likes reading and writing about food as much as he enjoys cooking and eating. Well, almost.
