Biryani, phulkas and orange-juice toasts: what a new book says about PMs' banquets

What India serves its guests at official tables has drawn fresh interest since the recent BRICS dinner became a political controversy, and a new book on the prime ministers’ tables shows the menu has reflected each prime minister’s tastes and politics since Jawaharlal Nehru set out to “Indianise” state banquets.

“Why can’t you give them biryani?” Indira Gandhi asked when a turkey roast appeared on the draft menu for the 1983 Commonwealth summit, chef Sudhir Sibal, then at Hyderabad House, recalls in the book. The kitchen obliged.

The Prime Minister’s Table: Delicacies & Diplomacies from the Era of Nehru to Modi, by journalists Purabi Shridhar and Sanghita Singh, draws on over seven years of interviews with families, friends, staff and chefs. The authors say they “entered the homes and hearths of the prime ministers” for its 14 chapters.

The book does not address the BRICS dinner and takes no side. It does record the prime minister’s own account of his diet: “I prefer very simple meals,” Narendra Modi said in a 2016 online Q&A, according to the book.

Nehru changed the form of state banquets. Garlands replaced bouquets, Indian dishes entered the menu and toasts were raised in orange juice, artist Anjolie Ela Menon wrote in an account the book cites. Her aunt Tara Ali Baig, wife of Nehru’s chief of protocol, helped Indira Gandhi draw up the new pattern. Nehru’s own palate stayed plain: a 1956 office note said he was “not used to spice and chillies at all.”

When Uttar Pradesh chief minister Chandra Bhanu Gupta asked for a wholly vegetarian menu for a Lucknow reception during the 1962 war, chef Imtiaz Qureshi built one from lauki “fish,” jackfruit “murgh musallam” and brinjal cut as chicken legs. Nehru teased the chief minister about the names, then told the chef: “Imtiaz, you truly broke the record.”

Indira Gandhi finalised menus and guest lists herself, Sibal says. One chair at each table stayed empty so she could circulate, small scissors were kept out for grapes, and young MPs were sent to a dining etiquette class at Hyderabad House. “I consider her the best,” he says. “Yes, she was a great host,” adds former Union minister Margaret Alva.

Also Read: Former Iceland President recalls serving vegetarian meal to Abdul Kalam amid BRICS Summit menu row

Under Rajiv Gandhi, banquets turned to plated nouvelle cuisine. Chefs Sibal and M S Gupta trained in Britain for three months, and baby naans with chicken liver pate, tomato-coconut soup and carrot-orange soup entered state dinners. “Rajiv Gandhi should not get all the credit,” says Sibal, who says Sonia Gandhi supervised everything from crockery to flowers.

At a dinner hosted by Kerala’s chief minister or governor, Lal Bahadur Shastri, then a union minister and a strict vegetarian, told the room his young son “will enjoy his meal if he eats with his hand,” Anil Shastri recalls. Morarji Desai’s teetotalism reshaped banquets abroad. At the 1977 Soviet dinner hosted by Leonid Brezhnev, “the Russians knew he shunned alcohol, and none was served,” says former foreign secretary K Raghunath. Toasts were raised in mineral water.

Three short governments left thin trails.