Pilaf: Difference between revisions

| image_size      = 280px

| caption          = [[Kabuli palaw]], the national dish of [[Afghanistan]]

| country          =  

| region          = [[Balkans]], [[Caribbean]], [[South Caucasus]], [[Central Asia]], [[East Africa]], [[Eastern Europe]], [[South Asia]], [[Latin America]], [[Middle East]]

At the time of the [[Abbasid Caliphate]], such methods of cooking rice at first spread through a vast territory  from [[India]] to [[Spain]], and eventually to a wider world. The Spanish ''[[paella]]'',{{Sfn|Roger|2000|p=1143}}{{refn|group=note|Roger: " (p. 1143) Under the Abbassids, for example (ninth to twelfth century), during the Golden Age of Islam, there was one single empire from Afghanistan to Spain and the North of Arabia. The size of the empire allowed many foods to spread throughout the Middle East. From India, rice went to Syria, Iraq, and Iran, and eventually, it became known and cultivated all the way to Spain. ....  Many dishes of that period are still prepared today with ingredients available to the common people. Some of these are vinegar preserves, roasted meat, and cooked livers, which could be bought in the streets, eaten in the shops, or taken home. Such dishes considerably influenced medieval European and Indian cookery;''pilaf'' and meat patties that started out as ''samosa'' or ''sambusak''."{{Sfn|Roger|2000|p=1143}}}} and the [[South Asia]]n ''pilau'' or ''pulao'',{{Sfn|Nandy|2004|p=11}}{{refn|group=note|name=Nandy11|Nandy: "(p. 11) Not merely ingredients came to the subcontinent, but also recipes. ... All around India one finds preparations that came originally from outside South Asia. ''Kebabs'' came from West and Central Asia and underwent radical metamorphosis in the hot and dusty plains of India. So did ''biryani'' and ''pulao'', two rice preparations, usually with meat. Without them, ceremonial dining in many parts of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is incomplete. Even the term ''pulao'' or ''pilav'' seems to have come from Arabic and Persian. It is true that in Sanskrit — in the Yajnavalkya Smriti — and in old Tamil, the term ''pulao'' occurs (Achaya, 1998b: 11), but it is also true that ''biryani'' and ''pulao'' today carry mainly the stamp of the Mughal times and its Persianized high culture."{{Sfn|Nandy|2004|p=11}}}} and ''[[biryani]]'',{{Sfn|Sengupta|2014|p=74}}{{refn|group=note |name=Sengupta74|Sengupta: "(p. 74) Muslim influence on the style and substance of Indian food was profound. K.T. Achaya writes that the Muslims imported a new refinement and a courtly etiquette of both group and individual dining into the austere dining ambience of Hindu society. ... Babur's son, Humayun, came back to India after spending a long period of exile in Kabul and the Safavid imperial court in Iran. He brought with him an entourage of Persian cooks who introduced the rich and elaborate rice cookery of the Safavid courts to India, combining Indian spices and Persian arts into a rich fusion that became the iconic dish of Islamic South Asian cuisine, the ''biryani''."{{Sfn|Sengupta|2014|p=74}}}} evolved from such dishes.

==Etymology==

==History==

According to author [[K. T. Achaya]], the Indian epic ''[[Mahabharata]]'' mentions an instance of rice and meat cooked together. Also, according to Achaya, "pulao" or "pallao" is used to refer to a rice dish in ancient Sanskrit works such as the ''[[Yājñavalkya Smṛti]]''.<ref name="KTAchaya1994">{{cite book |author=[[K. T. Achaya]] |title=Indian food: a historical companion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-cFcH2ZHWLcC |year=1994 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=11}}</ref> However, according food writers [[Colleen Taylor Sen]] and [[Charles Perry (food writer)|Charles Perry]], and social theorist [[Ashis Nandy]], these references do not substantially correlate to  the  commonly used meaning and history implied in pilafs, which appear in Indian accounts after the medieval Central Asian conquests.<ref>{{citation|last=Sen|first=Colleen Taylor|title=Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VN_vCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA164|year=2014|publisher=Reaktion Books|isbn=978-1-78023-391-8|pages=164–5}} Quote: "(pp. 164–165) "Descriptions of the basic technique appear in thirteenth-century Arab cookbooks, although the name pulao is not used. The word itself is medieval Farsi, and the dish may have been created in the early sixteenth century at the Safavid court in Persia.  ... Although dishes combining rice, meat and spices were prepared in ancient times, the technique of first sautéing the rice in ghee and then cooking it slowly to keep the grains separate probably came later with the Mughals."</ref><ref>{{citation|last=Perry|first=Charles|title=Annual Cookbook Issue : BOOK REVIEW : An Armchair Guide to the Indian Table : INDIAN FOOD: A Historical Companion By K. T. Achaya (Oxford University Press: 1994; $35; 290 pp.)|journal=Los Angeles Times|date=December 15, 1994|url=http://articles.latimes.com/1994-12-15/food/fo-9100_1_indian-food}} Quote: "The other flaw is more serious. Achaya has clearly read a lot about Indian food, but it was in what historians call secondary sources. In other words, he's mostly reporting what other people have concluded from the primary evidence. Rarely, if ever, does he go to the original data to verify their conclusions.  This is a dangerous practice, particularly in India, because certain Indian scholars like to claim that everything in the world originated in India a long time ago. ... Achaya even invents one or two myths of his own. He says there is evidence that south Indians were making pilaf 2,000 years ago, but if you look up the book he footnotes, you find that the Old Tamil word pulavu had nothing to do with pilaf. It meant raw meat or fish."</ref><ref>{{citation|last1=Nandy|first1=Ashis|authorlink=Ashis Nandy|title=The Changing Popular Culture of Indian Food: Preliminary Notes|journal=South Asia Research|volume=24|issue=1|year=2004|pages=9–19|issn=0262-7280|doi=10.1177/0262728004042760|citeseerx=10.1.1.830.7136|ref=none}} Quote: " (p. 11) Not merely ingredients came to the subcontinent, but also recipes. ... All around India one finds preparations that came originally from outside South Asia. ''Kebabs'' came from West and Central Asia and underwent radical metamorphosis in the hot and dusty plains of India. So did ''biryani'' and ''pulao'', two rice preparations, usually with meat. Without them, ceremonial dining in many parts of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is incomplete. Even the term ''pulao'' or ''pilav'' seems to have come from Arabic and Persian. It is true that in Sanskrit — in the Yajnavalkya Smriti — and in old Tamil, the term ''pulao'' occurs (Achaya, 1998b: 11), but it is also true that ''biryani'' and ''pulao'' today carry mainly the stamp of the Mughal times and its Persianized high culture.''</ref>

Another primary source for pilaf dishes comes from the 17th-century Iranian philosopher [[Molla Sadra]].<ref name=algar>{{cite book|last=Algat |first=Ayla |title=Classical Turkish Cooking: Traditional Turkish Food for the America |publisher=HarperCollins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gn49svh2_KUC&pg=PT13|isbn=9780062039118 |date=2013-07-30 }}</ref>

During the period of the [[Soviet Union]], the Central Asian versions of the dish spread throughout all Soviet republics, becoming a part of the common [[Soviet cuisine]].

=== Bangladesh ===

=== Brazil ===

[[File:Plov Tashkent.jpg|thumb|right|Public cooking in [[Tashkent]]]]

[[File:Samarkand Zigir-pilaf.jpg|thumb|right|[[Samarkand]] pilaf cooked with linseed oil]]

Although often prepared at home, palov is made on special occasions by an ''oshpaz'' (osh master chef), who cooks it over an open flame, sometimes serving up to 1,000 people from a single cauldron on holidays or occasions such as weddings. ''Oshi nahor'', or "morning palov", is served in the early morning (between 6 and 9 am) to large gatherings of guests, typically as part of an ongoing wedding celebration.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Perfect Plov Recipe|url=https://nargiscafe.com/perfect_plov_recipe/|website=nargiscafe.com|access-date=2020-05-24}}</ref>

<gallery class="center" widths="180px" heights="145px" caption="Rice pilaf examples from Central Asia">

File:Plov122.jpg|[[Uzbek cuisine|Uzbek]] plov being prepared in a ''[[Kazon (cookware)|kazon]]'' in a Tashkent home

[[File:Zafrani Pulao.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Zafrani Chicken Pulao, Karachi, Pakistan]]

[[File:Cholistani Camel Meat Pulao.JPG|thumb|right|Camel meat pulao, Pakistan]]

Pulao is famous in all parts of Pakistan, but the cooking style can vary slightly in other parts of the country. It is prepared by [[Sindhi people]] of Pakistan in their marriage ceremonies, condolence meetings, and other occasions.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Reejhsinghani|first1=Aroona|title=Essential Sindhi Cookbook|date=2004|publisher=Penguin Books India|isbn=9780143032014|page=237|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ym9IWIZELc8C&q=Sindhi+Pulao&pg=PA237|access-date=22 August 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Reejhsinghani|first1=Aroona|title=The Sindhi Kitchen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1HAYAgAAQBAJ&q=Sindhi+Pulao&pg=PT175|access-date=22 August 2015|isbn=9789383260171|date=2013-07-25}}</ref>