Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 162

tasters, table spreaders and servers, and
perhaps most important, a large number
of storekeepers, for the Imperial Kitchen
had to be ready to move a day in advance
of the Emperor when he went on tour.
The mīr bakāwal was required, according
to the Āīn-i Akbarī , to prepare both annual
and monthly estimates for his depart-
ment, to determine the rates of materials
required, and to make the necessary pur-
chases, entering all these in a day-book;
he had also to pay the monthly wages
of the staff. Provisions such as rice from
various sources, other grains, ī (clarified
butter), live goats and sheep, ducks and
fowls, etc., were collected at the beginning
of each season (doubtless to take advan-
tage of seasonal fluctuations in prices);
the livestock would be fattened under the
care of the cooks; a kitchen-garden was
also established to provide a continual
supply of fresh vegetables. Livestock was
slaughtered outside the city or camp by a
river or tank, and the meat washed and
sent to the kitchen in sealed sacks; within
the kitchen it would again be washed in
selected water taken from sealed vessels
before being cooked. During the cook-
ing processes, in which every dish would
be under the supervision of one of the
sub- bakāwal s, awnings would be spread
and lookers-on carefully kept away; the
finished dishes, after being tasted by the
cooks and the bakāwal s, would be served
in utensils of gold or silver, tinned copper
or earthenware, tasted by the mīr bakāwal ,
tied up in cloths and sealed, with a note
of their contents, before being sent to the
table; as an additional precaution a store-
keeper would send also a list of the vessels
used, so that none of the dishes might be
substituted by an unauthorised one, and
the used vessels had to be checked against
the list when they were returned. As the
food was carried from the kitchen by the
bakāwal s, cooks and others, guarded by

mace bearers, a similar procession would
be sent from the bakery, the ābdār-āna ,
and the mēwa-āna , all dishes again sealed
by a bakāwal . Some dishes from the Impe-
rial table might be sent, as a mark of spe-
cial favour, to the queens and princes;
but of course the kitchen was kept busy
the whole time, apart from the meals
required for the emperor's table, in pro-
viding meals for the zanāna.
The water of the Ganges had a special
reputation for purity, and here perhaps
pre-Mual usage is perpetuated in that
Muammad b. Tulu is known to have
used special couriers to bring Ganges
water to his court; Akbar while at Āgra
or Fatpur Sikrī is said to have obtained
Ganges water from Sōrōn, a town of
some antiquity now no longer on the
main channel of the Ganges, and while in
Lāhawr from Hardwār. His practice was
followed by later Mual rulers. This was
used for drinking water; but even water for
cooking purposes had a small amount of
Ganges water mixed with it. Trustworthy
persons drew the water and despatched it
to court in sealed jars. Drinking water was
at first cooled in sealed containers stirred
in a vessel containing a solution of saltpe-
tre, although after the court moved to the
Panāb, ice was regularly used, brought
from the Panāb hills by land or water.
For all these arrangements the ābdār-āna
was responsible, and also for the provi-
sion of arbat when required; indeed, in
the reign of ahāngīr the ābdār-āna
was known as the arbat-āna . On the
march or in camp, drinking water was
cooled by being carried in a tinned flask
covered with a cloth wrapping which was
kept constantly moist, so that the contents
were cooled by evaporation from the sur-
face, as in the modern army water-bottle
(the evidence of Mual paintings shows
a simpler method, still in use: the water is
kept in a large earthenware vessel ( surāhī ),