There’s something delightful when you walk into the restaurants of one of the top hotels of Mumbai and are welcomed by the aroma that reminds you of home. The ongoing Great Maratha Warriors Food Festival at Sofitel BKC offers a wide spread of preparations from the state of Maharashtra, where I have my roots.
On the menu is everything from the spicy mutton curry to the bland pithla as well as the sinfully sweet karanji and puran poli. So, don’t let the name of the festival fool you; the spread isn’t Spartan. It is, however, very spicy, which is refreshing because most international hotel chains tweak local cuisines to suit international taste buds and in the process (often) compromise on the authenticity of the cuisine’s flavor.
For the next 10 days, the food coming out of the kitchens of Sofitel’s Pondicherry Cafe won’t be made by Michelin star chefs but rather a mother-daughter duo, Sugandha and Varsha who run a popular YouTube channel, Being Marathi. Sugandha insists on grinding the masalas by hand — an electric grinder simply won’t do — and cooks walking barefoot because she believes it is inauspicious to enter the kitchen with footwear on.
The varied dishes on the menu don’t exactly count as ‘warrior food’. The desserts, for instance, would fit more in the kitchen of a high caste Brahmin than a hard-bodied soldier. Whether it is the zunka, a dry preparation made out of dal, or sukki kombdi, the dry roasted chicken peppered with spices to be eaten with bhakri, a bread made out of coarsely ground wheat… this is not a meal for kings but rather a common man’s lunch.
The folks at Sofitel weren’t however entirely incorrect in calling it a feast for warriors. Because it was the common man who rallied behind Shivaji, the most popular of the Maratha heroes, and put up a stiff fight against the might of the Mughal Empire. Everyday farmers and ironsmiths became warriors and while their jobs changed over the course of a generation or two — from ploughing fields to fighting wars — their food remained almost the same, simple yet spicy.
As appetizers, I was served kothambir vadi (coriander fritters). The main course was mutton rassa, a watery mutton gravy that complemented the plain rice while the spicy sukki kombdi and the pithale (a thick gravy-like preparation made out of dal) served as great accompaniments to the bhakri. This was food for the soul.
The Maharashtrian cuisine, quite like any other Indian cuisine, varies from region to region. But it also varies from caste to caste. The simple-yet-spicy non-vegetarian dishes of the Malwas, the Maratha warriors, slowly made way for elaborate vegetarian fare preferred by the Brahmin Peshwas, who eventually became the de facto rulers of the Maratha Empire and the center of power shifted from Konkan (Raigad was Shivaji’s capital) to Pune (which was the seat of Peshwas).
Out went the spicy, non-vegetarian dishes and in came vegetarian preparations such as varan (a bland dal to be accompanied with plain rice), masale bhaat (a mildly spicy vegetarian rice preparation), shrikhand (a dessert made out of strained yogurt), basundi (a sweetened milk preparation) and karanji (deep-fried fritters stuffed with sweet coconut fillings, pictured above).
The Great Maratha Warriors Food Festival, which is on till November 30 at Sofitel BKC, serves all of these dishes and more. Sure its menu offers an insight into the culture of the Maratha warriors but it also offers a peek into the very soul of Maharashtra.
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