Fifty threads of celebration

From a common man’s beloved breakfast to becoming synonymous with festivities during Eid, here’s how seviyan came to conquer the palates pan-India, writes Madhulika Dash

Three years ago, when Chef Harangad Singh and Chef Ravi Tokas (the culinary brains of Prankster) began researching on sevian or seviyan, it was more out of the need to find something that could make the grade of the retro-reinvent-themed menu that re-jigged classics, and of course brighten up Eid.

What the duo that travelled the lesser-known bylanes of Phagwada, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and even the erstwhile Shajahanabad to find the origin of the famous Indian noodle — also called vermicelli because of its slim girth and likeliness to the Italian pasta type — couldn’t envisage was the “discovery trip our little ‘need’ would put us into.”

In the sporadic weeks we road travelled, recalls Chef Tokas, “we found two things in common: seviyan had varieties and two, the sheer khurma was made everywhere in two formats, one the comforting porridge kind that used the thicker strands of seviyan and two was this rich, luscious moist dry version made of the thinner strands that resembled either the seviyan ka muzzafar or the khimia seviyan.”

Sheer Khurma. PHOTO COURTESY Lite Bite Food

Instant meal

The duo, enamoured by the discovery, eventually chose the aate ke seviyan, which was popular in the towns of Punjab and UP. The aate ke seviyan, says Chef Singh, “much like achar and papad was one of the summer home activities of most of the womenfolk in the towns that festooned alongside these highways built by Sher Shah Suri.

Initially made as an added food resource, seviyan was this instant meal component that could make a delicious dish, sweet and savoury, even a celebratory one. In fact, it was a skill that many of the old ladies still practice where they roll out pounds and pounds of this slightly stiff dough into long grain seviyan that is sun-dried and stored for later use.

“Fascinatingly, a large part of our civilisation history has these thin, air-dried noodles made of locally grown rice and millet varieties serving as an important source of sustenance, not just on a daily basis but during travels and when nature played unfair,” adds Chef Saurabh Udinia (Corporate Executive Chef, Masala Library By Jiggs Kalra) whose ‘ interest’ for seviyan grew while working on a traditional Egyptian dessert called the kunafa, which is this delicious sweet “made with seviyan-styled vermicelli
and peppered with a generous amount of cream, dry fruits, cardamom and sugar.”

Atte ke seviyan

A ‘flouring’ culture

Back then, adds Chef Udinia, “seviyan, thanks to its process of making, served as a texture builder of a dish. And could take on as interesting a palate texture as you want. A good example of this is the kunafa as well as the falooda, which many believe was the dessert drink that made seviyan popular in India as a celebratory ingredient — and led to the birth of the iconic sheer khurma, which is a derivative of the Persian dish called shir berenj.

Fascinatingly, the ‘thin noodle culture’, says chef Sabyasachi Gorai (Culinary Director, Byg Brewski) was as big a part of our food culture as it was for China, from where many believe the art of noodle-making proliferated to the rest of Asia (and the world).” Did it really? Gorai, the culinary anthropologist, shrugs, “it is a mere conjecture that sounds logical given China’s vast collection of noodles. But if you look at the traditional methods of preservation, there are enough examples of how India too had its seviyan making culture from different kinds of flours.

Chuda Ghasa. PHOTO COURTESY CulinaryXpress

In fact, adds culinary consultant and researcher Chef Nimish Bhatia, “reprocessing food was a big part of ancient civilisation. And creating multiple formats from a single produce, a common, much-loved practice. With seviyan of course, the pull was not just the shelf life but also the fact that it could be made for a variety of flours and other ingredients.”

While seviyan traditionally was made with rice flour that was easy to play with, eventually they were made with maida, maida and rice and semolina,” says Chef Bhatia who believes that the art of seviyan making was dominated by the eventual purpose it had to serve.

So, while in the north you had the slightly thick strands made for porridge and to be cooked with rice — as is the case with the biryani from Rohilkhand — there was also this hair-thin seviyan that could be pre-roasted and used as instant food. Translated food-wise, while the thick version made a fantastic Rajasthani seviyan ka soyeta, a beloved breakfast, the latter led to a delicious doodh pheni, where warm milk and nuts are poured over a strand of pre-roasted seviyan that have a distinct brown colour ­— a Sehri must-have during
Ramadan.

The purpose-suited variety, in fact, was one of the key reasons, adds Chef Gorai, “for the rise of seviyan in the Mughal court where it was valued for both its artisanal quality, and culinary brilliance. It made for an exemplary khirsa or kheer, which was scrumptious with a rich mouthfeel.”

This, along with the fact that seviyan was already a part of the Persian court food culture and of Nowruz celebrations, ensured its presence in Eid as well. In fact, many historians believe that dum ki seviyan, a sweetmeat speciality of the Mughal court, was an indigenous take on the seviyan ka muzzafar, which was already present in the time of Darius the Great.

Foodlore has it that the emperor enjoyed a light, but filling breakfast of rolls of thread-thin seviyan that were soaked in milk (some say goat milk) with cheese, date syrup, fruits and dry fruits on the celebratory morning — and that’s how this common man’s staple transformed into a celebratory dish.

While little is known about how much of the sheer khurma, seviyan ki kheer or the khimia seviyan we have today to mark Eid, has a semblance to the one gracing the Red Fort feast tables, the popularity can be gauged from its pan-India presence. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, everywhere there are quite a few formats of seviyan kheer or sheer khurma, each sharing a common love for sugar, cardamom, ghee, seviyan (thin, and hand-rolled) and milk.

What changes, adds Chef Bhatia, “is the embellishment. While the one made in the North hovers between the simple kheer style to the khimia style dry ones with a generous amount of dry fruits thrown in, the ones in the South lean towards the payasam style.

“Seviyan (even sheer khurma) remained in focus in the rich heartland of India, which enjoyed the Nawabi patronage with two versions of seviyan — the khimia and muzzafar —holding precedence with exceptional importance given to both, the making of seviyan and the flavour build up. One such example of this is the Awadhi seviyan kurma which uses clotted cream, khoya added later for richness and that luxurious palate feel. Another is the Hyderabadi style which uses ghee to roast the seviyan and then a rose water drizzle to give it that aromatic, palate play. In fact, the secret to a great old Hyderabad seviyan is the little salt that goes into the making of its fine strands that gives it the exceptional flavour,” Chef Bhatia adds.

Royal patronage

Hand-rolling of seviyan while was a traditional occupation since the early years of Spice Route, became a royal patronage under the Mughals, who revered it as much as dates given that the Prophet loved it and celebrated the ending of 40 days of penance with a bowl of this delicious comfort.
Historians often credit Humayun to ignite the love for seviyan in the court by reintroducing the Persian kurma as dum ki seviyan, it was under Emperor Shah Jahan that it took the shape of being a versatile sweet that had spices, ghee, dry fruits and in a few occasions fruits as well. Such was the love for seviyan that eventually, it became a key role in the kitchen where different forms of seviyan was curated on a whim. By the time the last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar took the throne, hand-rolling strands of seviyan had become a favourite musing – especially around Ramadan. And often it was those strands that were made into the celebratory kheer that we call meethi seviyan of Eid. The roll of 1857, in fact, proved to be a golden year for seviyan too as many royal kitchens took to building the food legacy – and one dish to immensely benefit was the seviyan that went from being the simple fare of cardamom, ghee, milk, sugar and dates that was served during the turban exchange ritual between Nadir Shah (of Persia) and Mohammad Shah (Aurangzeb’s son) to the gourmet style dressed with Shah Jahan’s golden varq to Nizam’s favourite balai.