From The King's Table to Street Food

'A wonderfully evocative book on Delhi and its food combining decades of scholarship with personal experiences and memoriesby one of our greatest food writers.'-Vir Sanghvi, journalist and author, Rude Food'Pushpesh Pant weaves a magical mosaic in his inimitable style about his personal, and Delhi's, food journey, spiced with anecdotes and tales. A mustread book.'-Rocky Mohan,food connoisseur, author and custodian of Old Monk rumWho is an 'asli Dilliwala'-a true-blue Delhizen-and what is his cuisine?To answer this question, Pushpesh Pant, food historian and raconteurpar excellence, takes us on a culinary journey from the Mahabharata'sIndraprastha-the first city of Delhi-to the present day, through theSultanate, the Mughal Empire and the British Raj.On this fascinating food trip, we savour the rich qormas and kebabs ofShahjahanabad and the Shepherd's Pie and mutton cutlets of 'angrezon kiDilli', with a light snack in between of papri or undiya, washed down with baelka sherbet in a good Baniya home. But that is not all. As Delhi's populationgrew to include migrants from across the country, so did its culinaryrepertoire. The Dilliwala of today is as likely to enjoy Calcutta-style streetfood-chops, cutlets, puchka and jhaalmuri-in the south Delhi colony of C.R.Park, as he is to relish a berry pulao and dhansak at the Parsi Anjuman. Andwhat better tiffin than idli-dosa-sambar from the South Indian outlets that dotthe city? From a city identified largely with Punjabi and Mughlai food-butterchicken and biryani-Delhi is now a melting pot of cuisines ranging fromKashmiri, Bengali and Bihari, to Andhra, Naga and 'Indian-Chinese'.Pushpesh Pant also tracks the growth of the city's restaurant culture, fromwayside dhabas and McDonalds to high-end restaurants that can compete withthe best in the world-justifying its claim to being a global food capital wherevirtually every cuisine can be found, including Japanese, Thai, Mediterraneanand Korean.Drawing on a wealth of historical records and literary sources, Pushpesh Panthas written a delightful, anecdotal account of the life and food habits of eachperiod of Delhi's history, that is as much a feast to be enjoyed, as the food hedescribes.