It's nearly impossible to think of Karachi without thinking about biryani — that magical dish consisting of a spicy aromatic meat curry nestled between layers of fragrant rice, dyed a sunny yellow gold. Last year, an essay written by journalist Ahmer Naqvi, about the best biryani spots in Karachi took social media by storm. In the piece, written for Fifty-Two, he said that digging through the history of biryani reveals layers of Karachi's sociocultural and ethnic bedrock, much like how digging through a pot of biryani reveals layers of rice and meats. The widely positive response to the essay eventually led him to create 'Khanay Mein Kya Hai', a series of guided food tours that explore the history and culture of Karachi's diverse (and delicious) culinary scene.
For the piece, Ahmer had, along with a friend, compiled an excel sheet of all the best biryani spots in Karachi. Over the next few months, they visited a lot of those places, out of which eight spots got featured in the essay. Interactions with some of the biryani joint owners revealed that people have a strong penchant for going out of their way to discover new food, which stuck with Ahmer.
Ahmer in conversation with the chef Ustad Imran of Al Fareed, surrounded by degs of biryani.
A food tour is born...and developed further
The written biryani tour did so well online, that people began approaching Ahmer for real life biryani tours as well. "Several times, people who didn't know I had written the piece, would speak to me about how they had read this article and were planning on going to all the places mentioned in it," says Ahmer. Eventually, his friend Tajammal Sheikh convinced him that there was only thing to do: Ahmer needed to organize food tours. And thus, Khanay Mein Kya Hai was born.
Currently being run singlehandedly by Ahmer, Khanay Mein Kya Haihas a fairly straightforward model. A Google form is shared for people to sign up a week before a food tour is scheduled to take place, and details of the upcoming tour are shared on the service's Instagram page. Capped at 10 seats, the participants convene at a pre-determined meeting point, from where they climb aboard a van that takes them through the tour, with Ahmer playing host, and occasionally DJ as well.
Being tour guide also involves being the DJ sometimes.
The cost of the tour covers transportation, meals and even samples from some of the small shops and businesses it stops at. "Sometimes we'll visit an achaar (pickle) or chutney shop, and the cost will cover the samples we get from there as well," Ahmer explains.
"At the beginning, I had really underestimated the time that it takes to get from one place to the next," he says with a laugh. He said it's common for most tours to restrict themselves to exploring just one neighbourhood, but he really wanted to expose people to a variety of diverse environs. Test runs of the tours taught him how to best utilize travel time, and present cultural and historic context in an accessible and engaging way, which he ended up applying to the first Khanay Mein Kya Hai tour, called the Ziyarat-e-Biryani tour. It featured three biryani spots on eastern side of Karachi and took place on June 11.
The first participants of the Ziyarat-e-Biryani tour.
Chefs as artists, and the oft delicious importance of stepping out of comfort zones
Ahmer picks places on the basis of three points: they have to either be renowned or long-time favorites, they must not be the usual haunts, and they should be places where Ahmer has cultivated some sort of relationship with the chefs. He wants people to be able to hear the stories from the creators of the food they are about to devour. "All these chefs that are creating, ultimately these really low-cost plates of food, are going through a lot of effort, ingenuity and discipline, while maintaining really high standards," he explains, saying that it almost feels like an art form to him.
Ahmer wants people to see these chefs as artists, and understand that they are often at the same caliber of excellence as chefs in fine-dining restaurants. He also makes sure the eateries on the tour aren't the usual sort of place that people would expect. "I think it's really important that we go out of our comfort zones and really immerse ourselves in these places," he says, adding, "Which is why it's important to be able to talk to the chefs because it results in a more meaningful interaction."
A map of Karachi featuring all the spots on the eastern leg of the Ziyarat-e-Biryani tour.
Beyond the violence and broken roads and sewage
"The reason I got into writing about food, is because I enjoy writing about things that bring people together, and create a shared sense of joy and give rise to community" says Ahmer, observing that food is the ultimate for that purpose. He noted that to most outsiders, Karachi seems to be this big, violent dirty city, but in that blanket statement, they miss out on the fact that Karachi is so uniquely diverse. "Beyond the violence and broken roads and sewage, Karachi is one of the food capitals of the world, and that is because it really is this large, complex, melting pot of a city, which is reflected in its food," he says.
He wants people to leave with a deeper appreciation of the artisans behind the food, both in terms of the skills and artistry involved in making it. "I don't want us to take any of it for granted."
For now, Ahmer wants to focus on the tours and getting into a flow with them, without thinking about next steps. Haqeeqi biryani over khayali pulao, if you will. But it's very likely that while he leads tours featuring food other people have cooked, his mind will be cooking up ideas of his own. As he says, when it comes to food in Karachi, there's a lot of ground to cover.
Khadija Muzaffar is the culture editor at The Friday Times. Previously a Fulbright scholar at NYU, she enjoys writing about society, culture, music and food. She tweets at @khadijamuzaffar, but is far more interesting on Instagram.
