Rude Food | Lucknow Diary
The great biryani search continues. But Lucknow, it turns out, is pulao country. It is also the place for outstanding kababs and kormas. And it has the best chaat in the entire country I went to Lucknow as part of the great biryani search. But all controversies about whether Lucknow made a biryani or a pulao were quickly settled. Every single person I met in Lucknow was clear that Lucknow only dealt in pulao, not in biryani. But why then did so many restaurants advertise that they served Lucknowi biryani – even in Lucknow itself? And what’s the difference between a pulao and a biryani anyway? The answers seem to be shaded in grey rather than black and white. There is no clear distinction between a biryani and a pulao unless you take the Hyderabadi line that only a biryani made with raw (rather than cooked) meat is the real thing. In Lucknow as in so many other places, I have decided that biryani and pulao exist in a continuum. Some versions are clearly biryani and so...