EXCLUSIVE: From British influences to kaanch pudding, Princess Brijeshwari Kumari Gohil on how the royal kitchen of Bhavnagar has embraced cultural diversity in Gujarat

Brijeshwari Kumari Gohil, the princess of Bhavnagar, is known for her passion for art and heritage. However, few people know she also likes cooking, a hobby she developed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Gohil grew up in Mumbai and spent most of her childhood in the city. After completing her education, she returned to Bhavnagar, where she has been deepening her connection to her roots. This connection extends beyond her family's historical role in shaping Bhavnagar and includes exploring her culinary heritage.

For most of her life, the princess has enjoyed meals from the royal kitchens, known for their delicious, opulent, and grand dishes. These meals typically featured Continental cuisine for lunch, which she notes was lighter on flavours and spices, while evenings were reserved for more traditional Indian classics. However, the Covid-19 pandemic marked a personal culinary journey. This period inspired her to experiment with the royal family's time-honoured dishes, such as finding ways to replace game meat with chicken and other alternatives.

Diving into Bhavnagar's royal kitchens
Gohil comes from a rich culinary legacy in India. One that she says has been influenced usually by the daughter-in-law of the house for at least two generations. She explains, "At home since my grandmother was from Karoli in Rajasthan, and my mother from Himachal in north India, we have always had local ingredients and flavours backed with these different cultural and geographical influences."

The fact that the Kathiawar region, where Bhavnagar is situated, is arid, she says, highlights limitations in what grows there and even but in its way, it has helped shape the cuisine in the area and turn the cuisine of the royal family, which resides in the Nilambagh Palace. "We also had a great British influence, so there was a whole continental amalgamation of flavours as well, and recipes that came in with the royal household and with the chef."

Interestingly, the heiress says the family is unlike what you would normally think of representing a Gujarati family, which is proudly vegetarian, a misconception she has dealt with on more than one occasion. "Despite being in Gujarat, we are very meat eaters in terms of what we eat and that has carried on. Back in the day, there was a lot of game meat and shooting that happened as a sport and hobby, so there were a lot of game meat recipes."

Over the years, the family has adapted their recipes to suit the meats currently available. "For example, many recipes originally featuring partridge and pheasant meat are now prepared with chicken," she explains. "This shift reflects changes over time, including the influence of different family members who contribute their flavours and variations to the dishes."

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Beyond the meats and donning the chef's hat
Even as the family enjoys its fair share of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, Gohil reveals another aspect of her interest that many may not know. "Frankly, I have a big, sweet tooth," she happily admits, continuing, "As a royal kitchen, we have a lot from the dessert and mithai lens." The family has been relishing a lot of mithais with ghee, and even halwa at home over the years. "As children, you are always on limited sugar intake. So, growing up one was always looking forward to the dessert and exploring that," she admits and shares a laugh with us.

So, what appeals to her sweet tooth among all that is on offer? The Bhavnagar native is quick to reveal a unique dish you may see in a new light. She shares, "It's not a traditional dessert, but one that is our version of the creme brulee, that we call kaanch pudding (glass pudding). It resembles the top of the crème brulee. Growing up, I was fascinated by it when it was cooked at home." Gohil says even as the times have moved and people now use the burner, the royal kitchens of Bhavnagar used to make it on a flame. "There is a beauty to it because you have to get the perfect consistency, and it is not as easy as using a spray or a burner. As children, one would always get fascinated by the way that sugar layer would be put at the top and then suddenly it would like crystallise." It got even better in terms of flavour because it was as good as a fancy restaurant crème brulee, she reveals. "We always grew up with calling it kaanch pudding, and it's something that would always be made during like a formal dinner at home," she adds.

While she has always enjoyed discovering new dishes and food at home, the Covid-19 pandemic was a major turning point in shaping her current culinary passion. She reflects, "Covid had a significant impact on me. It was during this time that I began exploring recipes, experimenting, and cooking for myself. From there, my interest in food just grew, and now I'm in the kitchen every evening." Gohil's experiments are often joined by her brother, Prince Yuvraj Jaiveerraj Singh Gohil, a trained chef with a degree in hospitality, who shares her enthusiasm for culinary exploration.

So, for Gohil, a curator and conservationist, it has been an interesting journey since then. She shares, "It is a lot about trying different flavours, old recipes which include meat because I always try and want to see how dishes traditionally designed for game meat can now use another meat." For example, beyond replacing partridge and pheasants, she says other recipes include wild boar in them. "So, how can I use goat meat or mutton for that? For me now, it has become more about the food palate, and the way one can change that with the flavours and textures, and how you can evolve and build on that heritage narrative then," she adds.

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Evolution of Bhavnagar's royal cuisine
With all these experiments underway, the royal kitchen has been the same but the food has certainly evolved. Believing in this evolution of even recipes from the royal household, they have also tweaked them to suit their palates. She says, "A lot of times you have a recipe that is very rich traditionally in terms of the ghee and chillies, but over the years, it has all become milder with each generation. My spice threshold is low in comparison to a lot of the recipes so I'm always dialling it all down. Generally, in my family, we don't eat a lot of spicy food, but all the recipes, especially the meat ones are all like spicy. If I put the number of chillies required, I think we would all be like crying out loud." She may laugh and it may look like she is joking but she is serious about how they have no qualms about making the changes to suit their taste buds.

So, it is no wonder when she says, "I enjoy adapting these recipes, which gives me the joy of experimenting with them and changing them to suit this generation.

One of the unique aspects of our royal house and kitchen is that the recipes are made with ghee and we have our cows, known as the Gir cows. "I've tried these recipes with oil and butter and other things. I know everyone prefers using healthy oils, but this is something that I stand for." With the region boasting of Bhavnagar chillies, she says their food does have it since they are not very spicy chillies. "Another common feature in our food is the use of besan (gram flour) in our meat dishes, rotis, chapatis and vegetables, she adds.

Documenting culinary heritage
Along with her experiments, Gohil has also taken the liberty of learning the tricks of the trade from the chefs serving the royal house. She narrates, "We have a few old chefs at home who have been in our family for generations, and in many cases, they are the last because there is no one from their family who is continuing the legacy and now cooking in the royal kitchens."

Among the many, Gohil says there is one chef, who is 80 years old and has been in our family since she was eight years old. "The chef understands flavours and has learned it all organically as she has learned and lived with it all through the years. She's got all these interesting anecdotes and stories with the recipes," she shares, continuing, "There is this biryani recipe that she has taught me, and we now make it very often at home. She narrated the stories of how everyone would sit around the table along with the entire experience of it. It is interesting to learn that and even be able to document it because I feel that is something that one doesn't appreciate but that is a part of the heritage of the country that one wants to savour."

In all this time, Gohil has had the opportunity to learn from the older generations and people who have had this variety of experiences to share. At the same time, she says you have to put those recipes and that food into what works today. She explains, "Even if someone's coming home now, there's so many dietary restrictions and requirements that are healthier, less rich, and someone's not eating too much meat now."

Bitten by the heritage bug pretty early in life, Gohil has a degree in archaeology and art from the University of Nottingham, and a postgraduate degree in Heritage Management and Conservation from Durham University, where she is currently pursuing her PhD. This has also led her to preserve the heritage of her land and its rich history through the initiative, Bhavnagar Heritage, while also being the vice president of Prinseps Art Gallery in Mumbai.

Does she document the food like she has done other heritage aspects? She reveals, "I would love to do something with food at the right time or as part of a larger documentation. It can be interesting and integral to the conversation and the history of the area. It is because there are two parallel food stories within Bhavnagar and the entire Saurashtra belt of Gujarat -- you have the erstwhile royal families and the food that was cooked was very meat-centric but then you also have a massive population that eats a lot of predominantly vegetarian food if you look at it today. It's also interesting to draw those parallels and take inspiration from each and see how you can maybe pair the two also today."

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At a time when many five-star properties are hosting pop-ups with royal kitchens, there is a lot of scope for India to celebrate its royal cuisine in more than one way and even Gohil is open to it. She explains, "I would be more than happy to do it for people to experience our food from the royal kitchens. It is great that one can do this, especially in larger cities."

It would especially highlight another misconception that she has faced.

She explains, "There is a misconception that the Gujarati thali is the main dish that one explores. The way things are cooked to the way one eats and the whole experience of having a thali is something very local and great but with a lot of royal families, especially during the British Raj is when you had your crockery and your cutlery become a very significant part of the entire cuisine and the experience because they retain that heritage." So, Gohil says how you're eating Indian bread and this Indian food that you are changing, is something you don't see in south India. "So for us, it's very different because of the kind of the British influence that we had and it is very cutlery centric so those finer things also end up playing a role in how one enjoys the food," she adds.

Interestingly, there is more than one reason for the Royal Family of Bhavnagar to celebrate India's Independence Day. It is because Maharaja Shree Krishnakumar Sinhji was the first to give up his kingdom for Indian democracy 77 years ago. How does she feel being such an important part of history? "My great-grandfather's act of giving up his kingdom and signing the annexation, I think for us within Bhavnagar and as a family, we have got a lot of respect because of him and his legacy and looked at the larger picture and what was happening historically and based his decision on that. So, for me, there is a sense of responsibility and pride, where family history and heritage are concerned. But I also feel that he was a very farsighted person because he knew what was going on at the time and the freedom struggle and had the vision that this was the future.

She adds, "The entire act of ‘balidaan', I have a lot of respect for because even to give somebody to borrow something, I think twice over it. There is a beauty in India's democracy and the cultural diversity and to be able to see that before it happened and materialised on and to give that up is pretty amazing for me."