‘Saffron’ wave: What Kolkata’s biryani obsession says about economics and food politics

From the chaotic arteries of Shyambazar to the manicured lanes of Salt Lake, and even beyond, when walking down streets in Kolkata and its suburbs, the air smells different. The sharp, pungent notes of mustard oil, once the undisputed sovereign of Bengali air, is fast retreating, confined to kitchens of homes.

On the road, outside metro stations, near college gates, at bus stands, another scent dominates: the narcotic perfume of meetha attar, saffron, birista or onions fried crisp, ghee and meat.

Over the last decade, Kolkata has witnessed a culinary coup. Traditional pice hotels, with their clattering metal thalis and temperamental fish curries, have been displaced.

That world has been crowded out by something portable and predictable. The new king is a foil packet, sweating grease, containing a generous helping of yellow rice, a piece of meat and the true monarch of Kolkata’s version of biryani – the potato.

Kolkata’s biryani has always been worshipped by the food lovers of the city. But it has been a dish that the ordinary middle-class would savour on “special occasions”. The sudden “biryani-fication” of Kolkata is more than a change in taste preferences. On closer look, it offers a fascinating case study in economics, logistics and perhaps even the politics of identity.

Food and economics

In the last decade biryani has managed to upstage traditional go-to meals such as puri with chana daal – in Bengali, luchi/kochuri with cholar daal – or samosa with jalebi or the simple meal of rice, daal, vegetables, and fish curry. The wallet explains why. For commuters, students and gig workers, biryani is an efficient bundle: maximum calories and minimum decision-making in one transaction.

A “proper” Bengali meal outside the home often means several items – rice, dal, vegetables, fish, each pushing up the bill and the uncertainty of whether the meal will be satisfying.

The potato is central to that bargain. Stories about why the potato became a part of Kolkata’s biryani vary: some link it to the exile of the Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah, in the city in the mid-19th century and a need (or desire) to adapt the dish. Others treat it as a later innovation that became tradition. Today, the potato does important economic work.

For vendors struggling with volatile meat prices, the potato helps keep portions looking generous without making the meal unaffordable. For the consumer, the giant, soft, saffron-soaked potato offers a psychological satisfaction that a small bowl of macher jhol, or Bengali fish curry, simply cannot match.

In a struggling economy, biryani is fiscal prudence disguised as indulgence.

Meals on wheels

The last decade has also coincided with the rise of the platform economy as food delivery apps have rapidly expanded. Here, biryani has an advantage over Bengali food, which is structurally hostile to the delivery rider’s backpack – fish curry spills, dal leaks, soggy luchis are a tragedy. Biryani, however, is dry, compact and virtually indestructible. A packet of biryani can survive a ride across 10 potholes and reach the customer looking exactly as it left the handi.

Biryani also supports the industrialisation of the kitchen. A pice hotel cook must fry fish to order. A Chinese wok chef must stir-fry every single plate of chowmein. But the biryani ustad cooks 50 kilos in a massive degh at 10am and the job is done. The rest of the day is just dispensing food.

In a high-volume, low-margin market, the batch cook model beats à la carte every time. No wonder biryani is the national delivery heavyweight: Swiggy’s “How India Swiggy’d” reports repeatedly place biryani at the top of India’s most ordered dishes.

Food and identity

But getting to the meat of the matter, is this surge purely economic? Unlikely. In India, everything is political, especially what one eats for lunch. As the national political discourse shifted post-2014, with aggressive vegetarianism and anti-beef narratives dominating North India, West Bengal found itself in a peculiar position: a non-vegetarian stronghold in a country increasingly defined by dietary puritanism. The rise of biryani is perhaps a form of “culinary federalism”.

Chicken or mutton biryani is a “safe meat” compromise. It satisfies the Bengali desire for rich, carnivorous, Mughlai excess while sidestepping the volatile politics of beef. It is a delicious act of resistance against culinary homogenisation. That matters when what one eats can slide from moralising to coercion.

When a Hindu family orders biryani during Durga Puja, or students share packets on a hostel floor, it is not necessarily automatically a manifesto. Most people are simply hungry. Still, everyday choices can carry meanings without being consciously political. Biryani is a subconscious celebration of the state’s syncretic, secular fabric where a Mughlai tradition has been seamlessly adopted as a Hindu festive staple.

There is a cynical side to this politics. In a state where large-scale industrial employment has stagnated, the mushrooming biryani stalls serve two functions. First, they are the new factories, absorbing thousands of semi-skilled migrants and minority laborers.

Second, cheap, rich food acts as a pacifier. As the Romans used to say, if you cannot give the youth jobs, give them bread and circuses. In Kolkata’s case, it is biryani and festivals. A population comatose on carbohydrates and dopamine is less likely to riot.

One dish to rule them all

But biryani’s victory is a loss for food variety and nuanced flavours. The bitter notes of the vegetable dish shukto, the pungency of the Bengali mustard relish kasundi, and the thin, fiery gravies of the Bangal kitchen are being pushed to the margins, reserved for cooking at home on Sunday, or to be eaten in expensive heritage restaurants. The street increasingly belongs to the homogenous, saffron-yellow mass of rice, meat and potato.

Kolkata’s biryani fetish is also being popularised by the influx of food vloggers, whose interventions have also led to a democratisation seen in the rise of several cheap, roadside biriyani hotels like Bacchar Biriyani and “American dada”, challenging the monopoly of the traditional and elite biryani sellers like Rahmania, Aminia and Arsalan restaurants.

But the city’s culinary biodiversity is being traded in for a standardised, reliable, and addictive monoculture. None of this makes biryani the villain. It is a mirror, reflecting inflation, the compression of time, the rise of delivery platforms and the way identity politics seeps into ordinary appetite.

Biryani is now a masterpiece of supply-chain logistics, a symbol of inflation-adjusted economics and a subtle political manifesto. It has conquered the streets, food delivery apps and our arteries. Macher jhol will survive, but it has lost the war for the street.

Niladri Chatterjee is a historian and senior lecturer at Linnaeus University in Sweden.