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.

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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. Charan Singh (171 days), V P Singh (about 11 months) and Chandrashekhar (a little over seven months) held office for about two years combined. Charan Singh’s table ran on bottle gourd. V P Singh’s wife Sita Kumari says: “I never attended any of his official dinners.” Chandrashekhar’s banquets for the Special Protection Group served no alcohol.

P V Narasimha Rao’s doctor-advised dal and phulka followed him to official dinners. “His usual food used to be served even at state banquets,” says Gupta, who recalls a cook assigned to make fresh phulkas at Hyderabad House. H D Deve Gowda raised toasts abroad without drinking. At a lunch for IMF chief Michael Camdessus he swallowed a ragi ball with water, “against dining etiquette,” says protege Kunwar Danish Ali.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee brought street food to the prime ministerial table. Chaat and jalebi vendors from Chandni Chowk were set up at his private parties, says Rajiv Makin, a former Ashok Hotel general manager. Served golgappas with the water in a separate pot, Vajpayee asked: “How do I have them?” At the banquet for Pervez Musharraf’s Agra summit visit, Begum Musharraf asked for the mulligatawny soup recipe.

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I K Gujral ran two menus. His wife Sheila, a noted hostess, wanted less ghee and oil, but at state banquets it was “rich food for the guests,” Gupta says, with lighter meals for the prime minister. The Ashok Hotel presented both versions.

In the UPA years, Manmohan Singh’s wife Gursharan Kaur curated Hyderabad House menus and called chefs home to show how ghiya koftas should be softened. “How could I expect my guests to be happy?” she says of food she disliked. Singh made 73 foreign visits in 10 years, about seven a year, including a 2009 White House state dinner that served green prawn curry.

Narendra Modi’s official menus follow his vegetarian diet. Israel served him an Indian vegetarian dinner in 2017, and chef Sanjeev Kapoor cooked his 2015 UAE banquets. “To know a country’s culture, you’ve to eat its food,” Modi said, Kapoor recalls.

Protocol sets the limits, Sibal says: state banquets are “all regimental and protocol bound.” Within them, prime ministers have pushed. Indira Gandhi told the chefs something like: “You youngsters need to open up and experiment.”