Few takers for tradition

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The wedding galas of India have literally become international showcases for Indian fashion, food and fun. From all over the world, romantic couples come to this land of legendary opulence to have a dream wedding. Many Indian couples too begin preparations way ahead of their wedding date to ensure that their big day is a memorable event. Some choose exotic locales like vineyards, heritage temples, forts or palaces, hill stations, seaside resorts or five-star hotels while others choose the efficiency of customised wedding halls which offer packages. While the bride and bridegroom concern themselves with their designer clothes, the family works with wedding planners to plan the décor and the food.

The wedding industry of India, which rakes in thousands of crores of rupees every year, has revolutionised the Indian wedding. Gone are the days when the bride dressed in a traditional saree or lehenga and the bridegroom in a simple sherwani or kurta. Gone also are the marigold-and-white-flower-adorned mandaps. And most important, gone are the traditional feasts of every community – which included a procession of mouth-watering delicacies ranging from the Maharashtrian vangi masala bhath and the South Indian pal payasam to the Bengali bhaja begun and fish.
 
Global, not local

No longer do we find the specialties of India’s diverse cuisines in most weddings. Instead, chefs serve up familiar, standardised feasts that seem to be designed to please all palates across all communities. There is a repetitive sameness about Indian weddings today. Most brides are dressed like Yash Chopra heroines. Families and guests perform Bollywood dances as taught by choreographers. Eclectic feasts based mainly on hotel menus are served at all functions including the mehendi, the sangeet, the wedding and the reception. These standard feasts are so predictable that guests don’t even feel the absence of traditional delicacies that have been integral to Indian weddings.

Why has this standardisation affected our wedding menus? Most wedding planners say that globalisation has spread its tentacles deep into every business, and weddings are no exception.

“People want easily recognisable foods on buffet tables,” says Joginder Singh, a top notch caterer. “The spread of tandoor and Punjabi-style restaurants in India and other countries, where large Indian communities live, has made this food familiar. Even foreigners believe this to be ‘Indian food’. So, putting paneer varieties, tandoori snacks and kebabs and Punjabi-style curries on the menu makes it easy for caterers to please all guests. Often, we add other popular international items like pasta, pizza or a few popular items from Mexican, Thai, Lebanese and Chinese cuisines to add an exotic touch. That is what most hosts want.”

No one rues this mindless standardisation of food more than some of the best chefs in India. Says Chef Surendra Mohan of Jamawar at The Leela, Mumbai, “In earlier generations, weddings were very traditional. Every community had its special wedding menu. Parents and elders in the family engaged priests, cooks and decorators as a team for conducting the event with family supervision. Times have changed radically. Today, young couples — who choose each other — may belong to diverse communities and have their own preferences. They choose the venue, the food, the clothes and the celebrations, with support from the family.”

Additionally, the couple’s guests are friends and business colleagues who may belong to diverse communities. The changing taste of the bridal family as well as the diaspora of guests determines the choice of menu.

In a typical five-star hotel, the preferred menu features chaat varieties, salads, cocktail snacks like nuts, crisps and paneer and vegetable kebabs — paneer being the jewel among snacks. The vegetarian menu again has a paneer dish, three vegetables, dal, rice or biryani, raita and accompaniments. For non-vegetarians, there is one chicken, one fish and one meat delicacy added to the menu.

For an international touch, Italian, Mexican or Thai dishes are included. A procession of luscious Indian sweets like jalebi, rasmalai and the ever popular pastries and ice creams are served. Most clients want such a menu because it is acceptable to a large number of guests.

Kamlesh Barot of the popular Rajdhani restaurant chain expresses disappointment that wedding feasts have become “a battlefield of egos”.

He says, “Menus are too elaborate, created with an ‘I can do better than you’ attitude. There is such a gigantic waste of food. Regional cuisines, which we nurture at Rajdhani, are sidelined completely. Today’s typical wedding feast showcases a monotonous medley of popular cuisines instead of highlighting our rich regional cuisines. Gone are the feasts of bygone eras where all varieties of food were served on beautifully decorated thalis or plantain leaves. Buffets, with no identity of their own, are the order of the day and these do no justice to any Indian cuisine with their overdose of pasta and chaat.”

Taste of India

However, Indian chefs, given a chance, can still create memorable feasts for even the simplest weddings. And, smaller communities like Catholics, Bohris and Parsis have preserved their identity by sticking successfully to their traditional wedding feasts.
Most Parsi weddings take place at fire temples with adjoining baugs. The reception and dinner also happens at such gardens or ‘wedding arenas’.

Traditional, sit-down meals are served on plantain leaves.

Starting with a procession of soft drinks, the menu includes delicacies like sali boti or chicken, mutton cutlets, dhan dal, mutton biryani, chicken farcha and patra ni machchi with lagan nu achar and wafers. The fabulous lagan nu custard and kulfi complete the meal.

Caterers like Tanaz Godiwala and Farokh Khambatta top the list with Kaizad Patel coming a close third. Their legendary Parsi feasts are the talk of Mumbai, where probably more Parsi weddings happen than anywhere else.

“Parsis look forward to the wedding season for these feasts,” says Farokh Khambatta. “The meal is incredibly fabulous and the banana leaf makes it unique. Parsis are known to be fond of food. They eat with tremendous gusto.”

Bohris too are a close-knit community and have their infrastructure for organising their weddings, which take place in the presence of their religious leaders.

“There is an abundance of online menus and lists of caterers for our community weddings,” says Nafisa Rangwala, a recent bride.

“Fatemi Caterers, for instance, have lists of items they can offer in different menus. Usually, at our weddings, the food is served in large thalis, which are huge dishes. Eight people eat together from each thali. We attach great significance to this meal. Men and women sit at different thalis. The menu is usually salt, lamb in masala, chicken Bohra fry, mutton zaffrani biryani, dal and roti with fried tidbits as accompaniments. A special dish called sonandu is also served. The meal ends with cheese cake, ice cream and fruit salad or slush and finally paan. Usually, the dessert is ice cream or soufflé, served in big bowls from which all eight people eat together. But even among us, a change is visible. These days, the bride and bridegroom are allowed to eat from one thali along with their friends and relatives. Sometimes, buffets are also organised by the caterers for convenience,” she says.

The wedding feasts of Goan Catholics are legendary because of the distinct Portuguese influence.

Roast maas is the famous crackling pork roast served at wedding dinners. Then, there is the pork sorpotel. The mainstay of the dinner is pork bafad. Goan fish curries are made from fresh coconut with spices and vinegar. Mutton Xacuti, served with Goan red rice, is a popular dish for festive meals.

The wedding meal, called the Kazarache Jeun, is a feast of delicious meat, chicken, fish and pork dishes with the fabulous Bibenca and ice cream to round it off. Here too, there is a long online list of wedding caterers, who offer all arrangements from the invitation card to the church wedding and the reception and the dinner.

Despite the wave of globalisation, India remains the world’s most colourful and vibrant jigsaw puzzle of cuisines, customs and ceremonies — all intermingling happily at any typical Indian wedding.

It is true that the majority of weddings have a ‘standard’ format where baratis dance, women dress in filmi fashion and monotonous feasts are served to guests. But hidden in the folds of these celebrations are the rare but refreshing traditional wedding feasts that are the heritage of each community or region.

 In small towns and in traditional families, such feasts continue to rule the roost, especially when they are served on eco-friendly banana leaves or patravalis.