Team
We are always having a debate over which biryani is better, Kolkata Biryani or Hyderabadi Biryani or the Awadhi Biryani? and as the people of Kolkata, we always believe that no one can make biryani better than us with a strong reason because we have Aloo in the biryani which makes it different from others or tastier. But do we know how the Potatoes (aloo) became an integral part of Kolkata’s Biryani? Let’s find out the history of Kolkata’s Biryani
It was all started in the 19th century, in the year 1856, when the Nawab of Awadh Wajid Ali Shah, dethroned from the Awadh and stripped off from all his royal privileges by the Britishers in Lucknow and left for then Calcutta to raised the case in front of Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie and also sent his envoys to London for hearing of his case in front on Queen and British Parliament but by then the Sepoy Mutiny was started in India and his hopes of getting Awadh back was deemed and the British arrested him in fear that he may cause rallying the rebels here. After 26 months of his arrest, he was released and granted an annual purse of Rs. 12 lakh back then to settled any part of the country but he chose the outskirts of Calcutta near the Hoogly river Matiabruj and started the construction of a replica of Awadh Palace which is known as Shahi Imambara today of Matiabruj and other constructions.
As he was famous for his grand delicacies and being a noble host he wanted to place an invitation for his courtesans, artist, construction workers who completed the construction of his palace here in Matiabruj but as he was not that much aware of the financial conditions because of the huge construction, so he could afford that much of volume of meat in the Biryani then the real invention of Kolkata’s famous biryani comes to the existence by the royal Khaansamas (chefs) of the Nawab had a wild thought to increase the volume of add the Aloo as at that time potatoes was not that common as it was grown only to some part of the Dehra Dun and costlier but not as much as meat. So they started using aloo in the Biryani and it got a good response from almost everyone including the Nawab. Since then Aloo becomes an integral part of Kolkata’s own Biryani.
As Aloo becomes so important in our Biryani that we find biryani without aloo or even a smaller piece then we can’t even describe it as Biryani because for us
Hope you like the story about Kolkata’s Biryani. Kindly leave your comments in the comment section.
Image credits @ HospiBuz & Anandabazar Patrika
