In New Delhi
WINTER is here and, once again, so is the dreaded bird flu in some Indian states.
The news will be disappointing for those looking forward to tucking into scrumptious tandoori chicken or butter chicken while lazing under the winter sun on holidays at some local park with friends and families.
Chicken, particularly butter chicken, called ‘murgh makhani’ locally, is said to be the most favourite chicken dish in Delhi and the northern Punjab region.
Walk into any restaurant in Delhi and you have a choice of wide range of chicken preparations, from Biryani Badshahi to Mughlai chicken pulao, Murg Noorijehani or Murg Kababs Mughlai and kormas. Murg is the Hindi term for chicken.
Most of these preparations are a legacy of the Mughals, who invaded India in the 16th century. They brought exotic spices, dried fruit and nuts and new special cooking methods.
But butter chicken is very much indigenous. According to a popular story, unlike the Mughlai dishes, butter chicken had its origin relatively recently, in the 1950s.
It is said cooks at a restaurant in Old Delhi, well-known for its tandoori chickens used to recycle the leftover chicken juices in the marinade trays by adding butter and tomato. This sauce was then tossed around with the chicken pieces being cooked on the tandoor, a cylindrical clay oven used in cooking and baking. The leftover dish was a hit in northern India and is now popular across the world.
Chicken and egg consumption in India has been growing, seen as an indication of rising incomes and a rapidly expanding middle class.
According to official figures, the production of eggs and broilers has been rising at a rate of 8 to 10 per cent per annum.
That puts India as the world's fifth largest egg producer and the eighteenth largest producer of broilers.
With demand growing and production keeping pace, chicken is affordable even for the poor. In the national capital, for instance, a kilo of chicken costs about Rs. 90 (less than S$3).
At the moment, the bird flu is confined to two or three states in the east and northeast. That means the Delhiwallahs, as the people of the national capital are called, will have their choice chicken dishes for Christmas and New Year eve festivities.
If the health experts and poultry farmers are worried, there are some chicken lovers, who see in the epidemic a feast in the making.
When the disease occurred in the past two years, chicken prices had crashed as chicken dishes went out of dining tables in homes and hotels.
Dubbing the scare as a 'hoax', the poultry farmers’ associations across the country had organised 'chicken parties', where the public could go and eat all the chicken they could, for free.
No prize for guessing how was the turn out. There was virtually a stampede at those parties as finger-licking chicken-lovers moved from table to table and gorged themselves on different dishes.