What did Shah Jahan have for dinner?
Mumbai: Salma Husain’s first book, published five years ago, was about the sherbets of India. Her second was a transcription of the Alwan-e-Nemat, which featured 101 recipes from the kitchen of Mughal emperor Jahangir. Her third was about a selection of pulaos from the time of Shah Jahan. Clearly, Husain, a Persian scholar who sees herself primarily as a food historian, and the Mughals go back a long way. It’s no surprise, then, that her latest, called The Emperor’s Table: The Art Of Mughal Cuisine, is about the food habits of all the significant emperors, from Babur to Bahadur Shah Zafar. The book intersperses anecdotes with recipes, from between 1483 and 1858. “What we call Mughlai today is just a combination of masala and oil,” says Husain. “I wanted to show that there was much more to Mughal cooking. There was a subtlety to it that no longer exists.” Sure, we know about the rich history, art, culture and architecture that the Mughals bequeathed to us. But that they also left us a r
