Rasodas were the true masterchefs

Rasodas were the true masterchefs

The Maharana of Udaipur, Shriji Arvind Singhji Mewar, is a dedicated foodie who rolls up his sleeves and cooks up a storm himself from time to time. And it is in that spirit he tells me that all these celeb chefs we see on TV these days leave him cold. Today, you can get everything under the sun in a mall, he points out. But in the old days, the rasodas in his palace had to make do with what was available locally and seasonally. And in a desert region like Mewar, there wasn’t much to work with in the best of times. To create delicacies fit for a king from whatever little was available called for some real skills, which the rasodas developed out of sheer necessity. “Just restrict the ingredients available to a master chef on a TV show, and then see what he can do with them,” suggests the Maharana. That will have to wait. For now, we can see how the rasodas coped with scarcity. Take the Panchkuta, a dish made with five dried vegetables — in the desert, most things are dried and used through the off-season. Bauliya, ker, sangari, kumat and ber spiced with amchoor, coriander, turmeric and salt are sautéed in mustard oil seasoned with cumin seeds. The result is unique, wholesome and tasty enough for a second helping, I discovered at a Mewari dinner presented by Chef Surjan Singh Jolly of the Renaissance hotel in Powai, Mumbai. Chef Jolly had spent time with Shriji Arvind Singhji Mewar in his Udaipur palace as well as with the Bhils and Kathodias of that region who still follow traditional ways of hunting, gathering and cooking. What Chef Jolly was drawn to, in both the tribal hamlets and the royal kitchen, was the simplicity in their methods which preserved the nutrients as well as the natural taste of whatever they cooked. There was the Kathodia Ghara Kokada, chicken mashed with all its bones (to preserve the calcium in them) and cooked in a clay pot with crushed garlic, red chilli, salt and buttermilk. And the Khada Palak, which simply had baby spinach leaves sautéed in ghee with cumin, chilli and salt. Quick roasting kept the vegetables crunchy, while slow cooking of meat in clay pots or on stone brought out all the flavours without destroying the nutrients. The royal kitchens on their part refined these methods with the inventiveness of their master rasodas. They had to, because each royal household wanted to outdo the other at royal banquets. It was a matter of prestige, and the potentate would usually leave detailed instructions in the kitchen on what was expected. Udaipur’s present-day Maharana — “the last fossil rattling around,” as he puts it — developed his culinary passion in this sort of environment. But today, how many households even sit down at a dining table to have a meal together, he asks. It’s usually a takeaway or a restaurant for dinner, and the kids are obsessed with pasta. He is happy that his 16-year-old grand-daughter, who was home for a holiday from boarding school, spent most of her time in the kitchen. So is she going to be off pasta after this? “Unfortunately not,” says the Maharana of Udaipur indulgently.