Uncovering Old Delhi's History Through Its Food

Purani Dilli has often been the first area in Delhi recommended to people who want to try the city’s delicacies. The Jama Masjid stands at the centre of the walled city or Shahjahanabad, a city built by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1648. As you go to the mosque through the Urdu Bazaar, the streets are filled with people trying on clothes and eating their breakfasts and drinking chai.

The tea is brewed separately, and the milk and sugar are added, resembling the English style of preparing tea. “In Old Delhi, chai isn’t asked for, it’s given, because they assume, ‘You must drink chai; who says no to chai?’” remarks Sadaf Hussain, Consultant Chef and author of Daastan-e-Dastarkhaan: Stories and Recipes from Muslim Kitchens.

It’s still early, but the butchers find themselves busy as people hover around them to buy fresh bheja (brain) and kaleji (liver). You will walk past many as you make your way through Matia Mahal road before reaching Shabrati.

Hussain says, “This is what they call the gareeb gulba (poor man’s feast)—Nahari was invented for not-so-affluent people, they say, in the lanes of Old Delhi, when Old Delhi was being established. Because you need a heavy meal, something that labourers and builders could eat to sustain them through their work. But Nahari ended up travelling in the opposite direction—it became loved by kings and emperors.”

Away from this commotion, oral historian Sohail Hashmi questions the history of Nahari, “Poor man’s diet—I used to believe it and keep on telling it, but I have come across references to a dish called Nahari in early Mughal times…What they were eating and calling Nahari and what is cooked now could be totally two different things. The story that is narrated in Delhi is that Nahari was very rich in chillies…but there were no chillies in Delhi before the 18th century…so no dish could be there which was so hot.”

At the location, the story of Nahari added to the atmospherics, but it may be tough to draw a line between its story and recorded history. Food deconstructs history; it questions authenticity and certainty and selectively chooses the relevance of its history. History could be the binding factor, but never the main ingredient.

If you walk back towards the Jama Masjid and venture into a patli gali instead to reach Chawri Bazar, you may encounter a hidden ISKCON Temple near Chhipiwara Road before reaching Shyam Sweets. The sweet shop, established in 1910, is popular for serving Bedmi Puri and Halwa Nagori. Unlike the regular puris, these have a grainy texture and are fried twice for extra crispiness. The Halwa Nagori, on the other hand, tasted like regular sooji ka halwa. But it was the combination of the puri, halwa and aloo ki sabzi eaten together that gave the dish an edge.

Most of the sweet makers, food critic and historian Pushpesh Pant notes, travelled from Rajasthan: “Even if you take the more recent migrants to Delhi, like Bikaner, Haldiram, and Bikanerwala, they are all from Rajasthan. The namkeenwalas, the bhujiawalas—it started as early as 250 years ago, when Shahjahanabad had just come up 400 years ago.”

There are several sweet shops that sell Bedmi Poori and Halwa Nagori, which has existed longer than many of the more popular dishes associated with Delhi such as Chole Kulche or Chole Bhature.

Earlier this year, Lotan Ji Chole Kulche, also located in Chawri Bazar, was in the news as they served food at Anant Ambani’s grand pre-wedding festivities in Jamnagar. The kulchas were light and airy, and someone from a nearby table even compared them to appams. However, when it came to Chole, there was confusion as to what the ingredient was, they were not kabuli chana or kala chana, and surely not mattar. Hussain finally revealed they were chote kabuli chana.

Lotan claims to have been running since 1918 but according to Hashmi “Cholas were not eaten in Delhi before 1947; what was eaten in Delhi was matra. This white kulcha also arrived in 1947. Before that, matra was eaten on its own. It is traditional now in the sense it has been around 75 years but given the age of the city…”

This is not to debate the existence of the eatery at a certain point in time but to understand how food influences our cultural memory. The popularity of this shop may have always been there and many people were familiar with it, but involvement in an event like the Ambani wedding has embedded the dish and its history in our shared cultural consciousness. As Pant says, “I think the problem is our memories of interesting eateries are what we encountered when we were growing up. So it (Lotan) may be a great place, but it is not a part of my memory...”

The popular Chole Bhature joint Sita Ram Diwan Chand is located outside the walled city in Paharganj, an area that became part of Shahjahanabad by the 1800s. There are tables set inside the restaurant where you can eat with 2010s romantic songs for ambience music. Anil Kumar, an advocate, while enjoying the food with another colleague, said he has been coming to the shop since 1989 when a plate cost just Rs 2. He noted that the dish tastes the same apart from the chole, which he claims could be due to the increased use of fertilisers by farmers. As a regular customer, he was aware of the history of the establishment; he recalled they hailed from Pakistan. When asked if the history of the place enhances his experience, he started explaining that the food and the place evoke nostalgia in him, tied to the memories of having eaten it since childhood. And for him, this surpasses the importance of its history.

Another interesting fact: in Purani Dilli, many shops existed that specialised only in one dish like like Lotan and Sita Ram Diwan Chand.

Amidst the many hardware stores in Hauz Khazi, one will find the small Bade Miyan ki Old Kheer Shop. Upon entering, you see a big utensil filled with kheer that looks fudgy in texture and has a slight tint like Bengali Laal Doi. The shop, established in 1880, has been maintained just enough to stabilise the structure. The minimal sweetness and the thick texture of the kheer make one question the authenticity of any other kheer they have tasted before.

One of the customers dismissed the tale that the actress Madhubala could have lived above the shop, saying, “Madhubala was from Banaras.” Jammaludin Siddique, the owner, interjected: “She spent her childhood here. Her father used to live here. Both sisters left for Mumbai from here.” The possibility that Madhubala could have once walked into this shop made the kheer feel tastier. Over Bade Miyan’s shop’s 144 years of existence, this tale must have been shared with people enough times to embed it in its history.

Another specialised dessert shop to claim a legacy of 140 years is the Old Famous Jalebi Wala. Crowds gather there daily. The jalebis sold are thicker than the regular jalebis and best enjoyed with a dash of rabri. The two ladies enjoying their food at the shop did not mind when interrupted to speak. They said excitedly, “You have to come here especially! We’ve been eating it since childhood, the jalebi is rasbhari (plump and juicy). It doesn’t have too much sugar...The taste has remained the same, it’s very old. I’ve heard about it from my parents too.”

However, according to Hashmi, Waqiat-e-Darul Hukumat Delhi, written in 1920, questions this claim: “There is a description of Chandni Chowk and a description of the jewellers’ market…you realise there was no sweet shop in 1920…When Nader Shah came and sacked Delhi, Dareeba had huge gates that were locked at night. His soldiers looted the market…all that remained were two broken pillars. Where the shop sits now would have been one of the pillars. His (Old Famous Jalebi Wala’s) claim that he had origins in 1884—maybe he was there, I am not doubting it, maybe he wasn’t. We are inventing entire histories for this country so a sweet shop can create its little history.”

The distance between today and 1884 is long enough to fill the gap of history with the vague “bohot purana” (very old). This vagueness, however, serves to enhance the authenticity of the experience, much like the taste of the jalebis.

On the other hand, eateries like Pt Gaya Prasad Shiv Charan Paranthewala located at Paranthewali Gali and Kuremal’s Kulfi may have been established around 1872 and 1906, respectively, but their relevant stories were popularised during or post-Independence, adding to their authenticity.

The first shop in the narrow Paranthewali Gali was Jawaharlal Nehru’s favourite. As you enter the restaurant, there is a photo of him dining there. Akash Sharma, a member of the sixth generation of the family of the shop, said, “Lal Bahadur Shastri would also often visit the shop to the point where the besan methi paratha became popularly known as Shastri paratha.” He also claimed, “At that time, when the fight for Independence was ongoing, all the freedom fighters used to meet in the area, and the food arrangements for them were provided by our family.” Post-Independence, Jawaharlal Nehru would often visit the shop with foreign dignitaries.

The deep-fried parathas are surprisingly not as rich as they look, and the boiled sabzis (vegetables) like aloo tamatar, aloo methi, kaddu ki pethe ki sabzi (khatti-meethi), along with kele aur imli ki chutney and dhania-pudina ki chutney, help to balance the fried element.

You can end your expedition at Kuremal’s Kulfi, which is famous for its stuffed kulfi. The orange-stuffed kulfi tasted as much of the fruit as it did of kulfi, at the same time. Apart from the stuffed kulfi, the rivalry between Kuremal’s two sons is also famous. The older son, Mohanlal Kuremal, and his brother Mahavir Kuremal have shops set up right next to each other in Chawri Bazar.

Hussain says, “In the 1980s, Mohanlal introduced stuffed kulfi at a time when resources were limited and supplies were rationed. Rabri was stuffed into fruits, and they would sell it. In 1975, during the Emergency, Mahavir Wale had already come up with this concept.”

The food of Old Delhi serves as a living archive of memories—both personal and collective—and as a reflection of traditions and their exchange, and identity. The exact dates of when certain establishments were founded, or their claims to authenticity matter less than what the food tells us about the present and the past. Like recipes, food can be a starting point to trace the exchange of ingredients and, in turn, uncover layers of history and culture. History, after all, is rarely linear, even if it’s often presented that way. It rarely accounts for word-of-mouth stories or acknowledges that collective memory is, in itself, a form of history—because that’s how history lives and evolves with people. While food may have rules and methods of preparation, it’s the freedom to break free of them that breathes new life into a dish, making it ever-fresh and constantly evolving like history and culture.