One of the most fascinating things to watch is a halwai piping out coil after coil of jalebis in a kadhai filled with sizzling oil. The skill and speed with which he does this is as hypnotic as the puckering of these coils when the jalebi takes shape and begins to come into its iridescence. It is hard to believe that this confectionary, which spans celebrations across communities, doesn?t truly belong to us, being as it is such a traditional part of our culinary heritage. Its origin, by most accounts, can be attributed to West Asia. As per Hobson-Jobson, the word jalebi owes its beginnings to the Arabic zalabiya or Persian zalibiya. So we know where the word comes from and even the origin of the sweet, but when did it become such a ubiquitous part of our celebrations?
The most reliable source of information is The Oxford Companion to Food, which suggests that in the Jain text, Jinasura, a reference has been made to the dish when describing a feast. What it also goes on to elaborate is that the jalebi is made throughout West Asia. In Afghanistan, for example, it is served in the winter months with fish?not a pairing one might imagine or, I daresay, appreciate, but there it is. In fact, the jalebi has even found a place in literary imagination, with a mention in The Thousand and One Nights: ?Of sweet Zolo-biya chain I hung a necklace around her neck. From its delicious loops I made a ring on her ears.?
But the jalebi that we have adopted is not how it is made in, for example, Lebanon. The zolo-biya, or jalebi, there are like ?fingers?, long but not coiled. But what is history without a little controversy? The jalebi has had food historians comparing it with the Arabic luqmat el qadi (meaning the judge?s mouthful) when trying to figure out which of the two is the more ancient sweet. However, there are basic differences in the recipes of the two. While one is made from batter, the other is made from dough. Some contend that the Arabic sweet, which dates back to the medieval times, may be the original version of what we now call the jalebi. The written word?in this case, recipe books?doesn?t support this claim. A 10-century recipe book does give the recipe for the jalebi, or zolo-biya, but the recipe for luqmat al qadi only appears in Al Baghdadi?s 13-century cookbook, Kitabal Tabikh (The Book of Dishes), an Arab cookbook of the Abbasid period. The Oxford Companion to Food calls jalebi the more ancient of the two.
In a time of food ?recontructionists?, people who do the difficult job of reviving lost recipes, the jalebi is one dish that has stayed true to its original form aided in no small measure by its sheer popularity down the ages and across geographies. The Sanskrit text, Gunyagunabodhini, dating from before 1600 CE, elaborates on the ingredients and instructions to make the dish and these remain identical to the way in which it is made today.
The jalebi is possibly the most ?inclusive? of our sweets. It does not owe its existence to a particular festival or any religious significance. In fact, its earliest history suggests it was made in Persia as a treat for the poor. But since then, it has evolved into a dish that satisfies the rich and the poor, and intrigues many food writers. When researching on this subject, I found an interesting story that linked the jalebi with one of Delhi?s most famous residents, the poet Mirza Ghalib. It is said Ghalib was once asked why he was eating jalebis during Diwali. He replied, ?Why can?t one have jalebis? Are they Hindu and Muslim, too, that I can?t associate with them? And how will the laddoo be categorised??
Maybe, in these times of identity politics, all we need to do is return to the unifying goodness of a rose-scented and sugar-syrup-steeped jalebi.
Advaita Kala is a writer, most recently of the film Kahaani. She is also a former hotelier having worked in restaurants in India and abroad