The science of the tandoor took place through the Indus Valley Civilisation, however was delivered to recognition by Shri Kundan Lal Gujral, the founding father of Moti Mahal. We map its expedition throughout historical past.
You’ll discover a checklist of tandoor objects on the menu of most Indian eating places, it doesn’t matter what nook of the world you’re in. The science of baking flatbread in an urn-shaped oven will not be latest, however one which has been in existence since time immemorial.
Whereas at the moment the custom additionally encompasses meats and different succulents, historical past reveals that folks have been having fun with the wonders of the tandoor proper from the time of the Harappan civilisation.
An attention-grabbing flip of occasions led to the tandoor fashion of cooking being handed down via the lands of undivided Punjab to Delhi — the place the historic Moti Mahal restaurant has saved the key of the tandoor alive since 1920.
A love affair
The artwork of baking bread utilizing this methodology was well-known through the Indus Valley Civilisation 5,000 years in the past, recommended by traces of tandoors found through the excavation of those websites. Individuals would construct cylindrical clay ovens into the bottom and lightweight fires with charcoal. The fantastic thing about creating this construction was that inside it, temperatures would rise to as excessive as 400 levels Celsius, lending the bread and meat a charred or barely smoky flavour.
However whereas the tandoor was prevalent throughout these historic occasions, it was solely through the Mughal period that cooking meats on this fashion gained recognition.
Emperor Jehangir is to thank for this. So fascinated was he by the smoky flavours of dishes cooked within the tandoor that he started pushing for meats to be ready in the identical fashion. And that’s not all.
Because the Mughals would shift base and transfer their military camps from one web site to a different, Jehangir fondly missed his tandoori delights, and to satiate his urge for food, he had a transportable tandoor created to arrange meats and bread on the go.
This type of cooking remained common even after the solar set on the Mughal period — particularly within the Sikh neighborhood. Guru Nanak Dev, founding father of the Sikh faith, was intent on secularism, encouraging folks of all spiritual backgrounds to eat collectively. By way of the formation of sanjha chulha (frequent ovens), folks from totally different communities would come collectively for a meal, with the ladies utilizing tandoor ovens to bake the bread.
Nonetheless, whereas the tandoor was a logo of neighborhood earlier than Partition, it is just after this historic occasion that it reached the fashionable world.
The Partition of 1947
The singular purpose for the prevalence and recognition of tandoori delights in Mughlai delicacies, throughout India normally, was due to a gentleman named Shri Kundan Lal Gujral. When he was just a bit boy, his father handed away. Kundan grew to become liable for supporting the household. This was across the identical time that India was divided into two separate nations.
Among the many scores of people that migrated throughout borders was Kundan, who left behind his eatery in Peshawar — Moti Mahal — and moved to Delhi. Unwilling to surrender on the work he had constructed since 1920, he carried the tandoor custom with him to the brand new area. With a buddy, he bought an area in Daryaganj, finally establishing the primary Moti Mahal restaurant, the satisfaction of which continues to be the tandoor thus far.
As Monish Gujral’s e-book Moti Mahal’s Tandoori Path highlighted, “He had the rooster roasted in a mud-baked oven comprised of a gap dug into the bottom and lit with wooden or coal — the tandoor (derived from a Persian phrase). Together with this got here the same old tandoori roti, constituting a thick ball of kneaded wheat, freshly baked in the identical oven, product of the acquainted floor wheat, however swollen to a crisp roundness. The mix was deadly for the weighty who had been onerous put to chorus and paradisiacal for individuals who may afford to splurge.”
The magic of the tandoor
The eatery’s web site gives a glimpse into the slew of influential clientele that it has served. It reads, “Moti Mahal has served the normal meals, from a standard curry and a roadside tandoor baking bread in a pleasant method with filled with innocuity to satiate the palates of well-known personalities such because the late US president Richard Nixon, then the Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, the king of Nepal, and Soviet leaders Alexie Kosygin, Nikolia Bulganin and Nikita Krushehev, and now we have taken satisfaction by successful the guts and style buds of each era of Prime Minister of India.”
It provides, “So that is the journey [of] a easy concept of cooking in earthen ovens, which had began in 1920 in an eatery of Peshawar, [became] a world model often known as The Moti Mahal Group.”
In the present day, whereas 90 retailers have been added to the legacy of the model, the celebrity of the tandoor has unfold throughout the globe. Each land has give you its personal concoction of spices to be added to the marinade. Because the delicacies of the tandoor grace eating tables internationally, it’s an ode to how this feast was born out of pure simplicity.
Edited by Divya Sethu