“There was nowhere in the world where this dish of the Nawabs of Awadh was better prepared. And tonight was to be no exception as the smell of the heavily perfumed rice permeated the hall. Five centuries earlier the invading Persian princes had bought a rich cuisine to northern India, using dried fruits and spice to infuse excitement and vigour into what had previously been a rather dull peasant cuisine.
Tonight’s Biryani had been prepared by Muzaffar Khan, the head cook of the Institute for the last twenty years. This was his signature dish and every year he recalibrated everyone’s idea of the perfect meal. “This is, by anyone’s measure, the best we’ve tasted,” people would exclaim. And again and again Muzaffar would surprise the guests with another subtle change in the combination of dried fruits, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom or some other humble ingredient that seemed to make monumental shifts in the flavours and textures of the dish.
Muzaffar’s arduous task would have beun by picking the bakri from the heard and haggling for the animal. He would have led it back to the Institute as though it was a family pet and tied it up under the peepal tree in the backyard, where he would have slit its throat and allowed it to bleed to death painfully, strung upside down.
Hours later he would have skinned it and cleared out its entrails, passing these valuable body parts to a brother-in-law who would extract a few annas by selling them further down the food chain.
Biryani Lucknowi style requires long labours, starting with the preparation of the meat stock, which Muzaffar had boiled for hours to allow the tough goat meat to fall away from the bones. He then used the stock to cook the rice, giving it its rick meaty texture. Later, raisins, almonds and fried onions, and an array of various spices in their stick and seed form, all helped to make the Biryani a complete meal rather than a mere achievement.
All dancing stopped for the Biryani as the New Year revellers tucked into the piles of rice heaped on their plates. Knives and forks rattled, adding to the din as conversations became louder to compensate for the extra noise of cutlery on china.
The wall of sound eventually abated as the Biryani ran out. Then a female singer in a pink two-piece began singing the Doris Day hit ‘Please Don’t Pick the Daisies’ and Joan got her first request for a dance that evening. Gerry gave the fellow a sideways glance like a watchful father as they slid away down the dance floor into the crush of dancers.
And so the night rolled on, the men got drunk on their whiskies, the dancing continued and the band played without pause. Then at midnight, as the make-believe Big Ben struck twelve, the crowd linked hands for ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Astonishingly most of them knew the world and the singing ended in a flood of kisses and greetings to welcome in the year 1961.”