Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c7.s2.t1.134

c7.s2.t1.134

VI. Food.—We shall conclude this discussion with some general remarks about food and table manners. Great care was taken in preparing food of a great variety.³ The laity was conspicuous for its love of flesh, but the priest, too, was far from what is commonly associated with the life of an ascetic. The Brahman and the Muslim theologian were both well known for their greedy appetite. Ascetics who persisted in living a simple life and in eating sparingly, were very few.⁴ Even the offerings to the gods were sometimes choice articles of food, for instance, *Puris* and *Gunjas*.⁵ The people, especially those of the upper classes, displayed magnificent hospitality. It has already been related that Imad-ul-mulk, the muster-master of Sultan Balban used to feed a whole secretariat every day at mid-day with fifty big trays full of choice dishes.¹ We shall revert to the subject of hospitality again in a later chapter, when we deal with the subject of manners. Let us observe here that the royal kitchen permanently catered for a vast number of people at the palace. There were two separate menus—the khas, for the Sultan and those who dined with him; and the am for a numerous crowd of theologians and other religious dignitaries, members of the royal family, and some other nobles whom we noticed in the royal establishments in an earlier chapter.²