Subhabrata Maitra

In 2007, most had hardly heard of destination weddings, and during that time, we were dependant on venue booking. We booked the venue and fixed a local caterer to cook the local favourites for our guests.

With boatloads of meat now stockpiled in the freezer post Qurbani, all sorts of recipes now fight for attention in my mind. This brainstorming took me down the road of 'haleem' craving and I set a goal of finding out the origin of this popular dish and the result was extremely interesting.

Salt was once one of the most prized of all seasonings, as revealed in the expression “below the salt”- nobles, who sat at the head of the table (above the salt), were allowed to use salt, while lesser folk, sitting below the salt, had to rely on herbs to flavour their food.