When one talks of culture, you think of art, you think of music, you also think of religion and family values. Food is probably among the last few things that come to mind, despite how much it can reveal about a country’s history. With his new book, titled From the King’s Table to Street Food, historian and food critic Pushpesh Pant attempts to recalibrate the understanding of culture in popular discourse.

He takes us on a stroll across different time periods in and around Delhi, and how social and political developments in the capital city manifested in the food that its people ate.

He starts by talking about his own journey of becoming a Dilliwala; a journey of discovering the city, with food as his compass. It was, however, much later in life, when he got the opportunity to curate thematic dinners based on Delhi’s past, that the foundations of this book seem to have been laid down.

The author goes as far back as the mythical times of the Mahabharata. Delhi, back then, was Indraprastha, and while their dishes may appear too far removed from today’s Delhi, Pant shows how a krisara or a samvaya may have paved the way for our kheer and balushahi.

As the author moves forward into documented history, Delhi’s Sultanate period throws up all too familiar culinary delights such as pilaf, baklava and the ever-cherished biryani. The book, however, is more than just a listicle of food items. Pant explains how the Sultans of Delhi, despite being connoisseurs of food, were not propagators of it.

Muhammad bin Tughlak, however, was an exception. He not just invested in research, but also documented the development of the culinary arts. That’s how we know that samosas entered our lives through the Silk road. Subsequently, with the emergence of Akbar as the central force, the culture of food truly flourished, and we had navratan korma and murg mussallam.