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THE RELUCTANT GOURMET

A hit with many Haleem

From between scurrying waiters, and neat piles of containers, Nazeef, one of the owners, took a pause from overseeing the organised chaos and approached me, looking quizzical. In about 15 minutes I was sitting down with him and his older brother Abid, having Iftar with them at a laden table when they broke their fast.

Over the past one month, Muslims all over the world have been fasting till sunset. In the evening, cities like Hyderabad and Mumbai come alive with streets bustling with people from all religions, as everyone eats traditional Ramadan food. Celebrity Chef and world traveller Antony Bourdain, in fact, ate at Mohammad Ali Road in Mumbai during this time last year, revelling in its now world-renowned kebabs, egg parathas and biriyani, and then told me — in a telephone interview — that it was possibly the best food he has ever eaten. And this from a man who has spent years tirelessly circling the globe in “search of the perfect meal”.

So I set out to find out what people in Chennai ate, and why we didn’t have bright streets crammed with stalls dishing out fragrant kebabs and creamy payasams. At Fisherman’s Fare, we started our meal with dates, and followed it with a bowl of velvety haleem, topped with crunchy cashew nuts and caramelised onions and squirted with fresh tangy lime. Made with mutton and wheat, with dried fruits, spices and generous dollops of ghee, this nutritious (and no doubt high calorie) porridge was introduced to India by the Persians long ago. Abid says it has become increasingly popular in Hyderabad, and slowly other parts of the country, over the past 10 years. Masood Hashim, whose wife Yasmin Osman, a gifted cook who runs the catering company Splendid Food (26448261), says that in Hyderabad even the postal department gets into the act, delivering kilos and kilos of the porridge across Hyderabad over the month of Ramadan.

Like any traditional food, the taste of haleem depends on the household in which it is prepared. Yasmin makes it on order, two kilos at a time, besides cooking it on that essential wood fire for her family. At Fisherman’s Fare, a whopping 40 kilos are made everyday in one of the biggest cooking vessels I have ever seen. Cooks brought in from Hyderabad start preparing it in the morning, cooking the meat and porridge separately before mixing them, adding spices and beating the mixture for about three hours with a solid six-foot high wooden ladle. “It’s all done by hand,” says Nazeef, as the chef staggers out with the ladle to show it to me. Though they make about 40 to 50 kilos of it a day, he says it’s generally sold out by 4-30 p.m.

At Marhabha down the road too, Haleem preparation is in full swing. Their special Iftar menu consists of juice, dates, samosas, fruits and ‘zam zam water,’ says manager V. Natarajan.

Fisherman’s Fare, meanwhile, is filling up, waiters balancing trays of haleem rush about, and the whole restaurant takes on that unmistakable festive, holiday feel as we tuck into bowls of khubhani ka meetha, made from subtly sweetened apricots and their rich kernels.

“This is a month of charity,” says Masood, explaining why so much rich traditional food gets revived during Ramadan. “A lot of food is sent to poor homes. And when you send food, you want to send something special. So there’s a lot of cooking done at this time… and a lot of sharing, with neighbours and friends.” Today, he adds, with this current wave of globalised sophistication, people tend to send soufflés and chocolate mousses too. Just like how fudgy homemade Diwali burfis have been replaced by packaged chocolate. Or homemade Christmas cakes are replaced by brownies ordered from convenient bakeries.

But at the mosques, fasts are still broken with kanji, a rice porridge eaten with chutney. At homes, families still gather over bowls of creamy sheer khurma, a sweet made with vermicelli and generous handfuls of dry fruit and nuts. And as opposed to relatively commercialised Mumbai and Hyderabad, many people still choose to cook the hampers of food, which they’re sending out, at home. A good thing in many ways. After all, nothing beats the taste of great, homemade traditional food. Especially when it arrives accompanied with all the good wishes and cheer of a festival.

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