Winter warmer.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
In the winter, the alleys of Chitli Qabar bazaar in Shahjahanabad present a fascinating sight in the morning. Along with street vendors selling objects as varied as Urdu newspapers, eggs, cloves of garlic and ginger, fresh fish from Punjab, live chickens, namkeen packets, gas-filled balloons, there are men who cover their share of the pavements with buffalo legs, or paya. Stacked in straw baskets, the blood-soaked legs – complete with skin, hair and hoof – are priced at Rs 50 a piece.
The vendors are called payawallas; paya means leg in Urdu.
“Although payas are also had in summer, they are a winter dish served for breakfast,” says Sabeeha Hassan, a Chitli Qabar resident whose son owns and manages a butchery in south Delhi’s RK Puram. “The legs of buffalo heat up the body. Its taseer (effect) is warming.”
Since it takes more than two hours to cook the meat, many payawallas sell semi-cooked legs to time-conscious customers. Often simmered on the pavement itself, the legs are arranged in a circle inside a water-filled utensil, which is balanced on a wood-fired or kerosene stove. The steam coming off from the legs wafts up into the air and mixes with the winter fog.
“The payas come from Ghazipur Mandi,” says Mohammad Shah Nawaz, a paya vendor, referring to the slaughterhouse on the eastern border of Delhi that virtually supplies all the meat to the city. Like most other fellow businessmen, Mr Nawaz sets up shop on the pavement. His customers comprise primarily the area’s housewives.
“The vendors also sell calves’ legs, which are cheaper, but I always buy burra (buffalo) legs,” says Ms Hassan. “The latter has more meat, while a calf’s leg is very dry.”
Recalling her food memories from when she was a child, author Sadia Dehlvi, whose family used to live in the Ballimaran neighbourhood of Old Delhi, says, “Our cook fed us with paya every morning during the cold season.”
Ms Dehlvi, who is working on a book that deals with Old Delhi’s cuisine, says “Paya is a soupy, gelatinous dish cooked with trotters and the lower part of the leg. Our elders believed paya to be especially beneficial for old people whose bones had become soft. Even today, if anyone among our relatives happens to fracture a bone, he is regularly plied with paya, which is supposed to strengthen the bones.”
In the winter months, a number of eateries in the Walled City serve dishes like nihari (meat stew) and paya in the morning (7.30am onwards). However, in famous restaurants like Karim’s (near Jama Masjid), the paya consists of the leg of goat. Rehmet Khan, the paya cook at Karim’s, says, “Many of our customers come from outside the Walled City, and they prefer dishes of goat rather than burra.”
Local residents like Ms Hassan are, however, traditionalists. “To me, paya means the leg of the bhainsa (buffalo),” she says, pointing to a paya vendor from her roof. “Making paya for breakfast is not easy,” she says. “You have to clean it of hair, then you have to boil it for hours in salted water. Like other gosht (meat) dishes, you have to prepare ginger-garlic paste. You also need to have all the necessary masalas.”
“Once, paya was an exclusive Delhi dish,” says Ms Dehlvi, “but now it has spread to Muslim communities across India and Pakistan.”
Garnished with coriander, green chillies, shredded ginger, browned onions, garam masala powder and desi ghee, paya is traditionally served with khameeri roti.
Foot in the mouth
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11. (Photo by Aditya Ramanathan)
The last pic (11) has the male version of Arundhati Roy, what a striking resemblance
Yum yum!
tried cooking paya at home once- from scratch. Never again. Now, for my paya fix I take me to a restaurant!