Lucknow Edible Silver Foil

fx

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 20:47:33 GMT

Try in some Indian grocery store

catherine

Wed, 5 Dec 2012 11:15:18 GMT

Have been looking for edible foil all over Dublin,Irealnd,Do you know where I can find it???
Thanks

plato

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:22:51 GMT

Silver leaves/warq (or silver foil as you put it) is commonly given to the pregnant women early in their pregnancy. It is usually given with 1 piece of carrot or aanwla (Indian gooseberry) murabba (the fruit is cooked to tenderness & preserved in the sugar syrup. She is fed 1 pice a day along with a glass of milk. Silver (& also gold) is very good for the immune system & of course both kill pathogens on contact. Gold is considered heat producing & so is not given to the pregnant women, silver is considered to having a cooling effect. Gold warq too is used to garnish food in India, but it is used only in over-the-top ostentatious settings, not as a norm. FYI, I used silver bottle to feed my babies, the very same bottle my mom had used for all of us siblings. Boy was that a life-saver...no boiling or sterlizing needed. Gust a good soap & water wash, sometimes I simply scrubbed them with salt or baking soda & rinsed them. My babies never suffered from any colic or gastric distress or the childhood diseases. And not to mention that it was the ultimate in being eco-friendly & cheap, for nothing there to be discarded...it is silver, remember? Also served as an immune booster for the babies.

Izharul Hasan

Sun, 4 Sep 2011 18:48:38 GMT

Hey guys, If you want these beautiful silver foils for the business or you just want to add delight to the food, then feel free to contact Bharat Arts, Chowk, Lucknow.
Contact person - Mr Mohammad Saleem ( Bauwe Bhai ) - 09336834741

fx

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 05:39:24 GMT

Parshu, indeed it is a pity to lose such a fine restaurant (beyond the horror of course), I must say that Masala Kraft, formerly located in the Bombay Taj hotel, was my favorite restaurant in India so far. Hope it comes back while people the wound.

Thanks a lot for mentioning the KUnda Kaliya, seems really in character with awadhi cooking, I will have to try it!

parshu narayanan

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:13:25 GMT

Hi fx,
I remember you queried me ages back on the use of gold leaf in Indian cuisine, and I had not heard of it. Well, I just did a little while back - a friend ate "Kundan Kaliya" at the Taj Bengal ( a sister hotel of the unfortunate Taj Mumbai where I"ve spent many pleasant evenings - seems surreal now)."Kundan" is the Indian name for traditional gold jewellry and "kaliya" is a mutton dish in a thin yellow turmeric-coloured gravy. In Kundan kaliya , an Awadhi dish, the meat pieces in the yellow gravy come wrapped in ultra-thin edible gold leaf for grand visual impact.

fx

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:50:32 GMT

Brains, thanks for your kind words! If indeed you have read the 200+ articles that is quite a fan I have here. I"m working on the possibility of adding short video clips in the future - hold tight!

Brains

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 22:45:52 GMT

Your site is so wonderful and full of amazing experiences, photos and explanations. Seriously, bravo! You have so many entries but I think I have read them all. I sent your site to a few friends and they are all obsessed already. Fantastic.

fx

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:52:54 GMT

Sunit, I really liked to be able to visit the place where they make the varaq, it"s true one sees it everywhere but who has seen how it"s made?

Sunit

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:03:00 GMT

Great to read about something which I"ve been brought up to treat as a very common decoration on sweets and paan (betel leaf_. But then, I"m from Lucknow. As others have pointed out, silver foil is used pretty much all over in Turkish-Arabic-Persian-Indian influenced cuisines. Only one nit to pick: the telephone directory is clearly not from Lucknow! It"s definitely from a south Indian city, most likely Bangalore, from the addresses listed!!

fx

Sun, 3 Aug 2008 14:48:57 GMT

Alexander, I�m glad my article helped you realize that by now you are worth your weight in pure silver!

alexander

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:06:19 GMT

On my first day in India, I had quite a difficult time peeling some shiny stuff off a paan I was nibbling until it was explained to me that A) the foil was edible and B) paan should be eaten whole. Until I saw your post, I had no idea what the shiny stuff was. I can vouch that silver foil does nothing to contribute to flavour or texture.

fx

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:11:05 GMT

Dueep, I know a chef from Punjab who has a shop here in Lausanne and when I mentioned the varaq he was very interested and regretted not to be able to import it here in Switzerland. Is varaq much used in Punjabi cooking?

Dueep J. Singh

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:19:58 GMT

Yes, I can understand the sense of breathless anticipation as you slap the waraq onto your dish and turn it into quelque chose d"exotique. But let me go into the medical aspect apart from the visual appeal of metal waraq. Metals, like gold, silver and precious pearls ground up are regular trace elements added to Indian cookery to keep the humours balanced and preventing "traces of melancholie". It might sound exotic to the Western world, but Ayurveda and Oriental cookery demanded these metals be added regularly to the dishes to keep the man fit and fine and virile and the woman lovely , healthy and womanly. That is a quote from Ayurvedic treatises!

GunnCat

Sat, 5 Apr 2008 14:51:45 GMT

FX, of all ways to go, that would be one of my choices :)

fx

Sat, 5 Apr 2008 14:12:40 GMT

GunnCat, with the homeopatic doses used to decorate Indian dishes, your liver would explode on account of the leg of lamb overdose before the silver can get to you.

GunnCat

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 23:05:12 GMT

Hi FX. I think it"s an interesting dish, just not something that appeals to me. I have consumed gold and silver in the past and it"s an interesting luxury that looks beautiful.
It"s worth noting that consumption of silver can cause argyria. I imagine one would have to consume large amounts to get to that stage however.

parshu.narayanan

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 19:54:05 GMT

Thank you fx, but let me confess that most of my learned comments stem from the University of Google :-). Silver and gold in micro quantities are a part of traditional Indian medicine ( Ayurveda) and so are consumed but I havent ever come across gold varq on sweets or pulaos. Though Aryan (or Indo-European) languages, both Persian and Hindi are choc-a-block with semitic-group Arabic words, as a gift of history and Muslim conquest and contact of past centuries.

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:31:16 GMT

Lyra, thanks for your appreciation!

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:27:05 GMT

Parshu, thank you ever so much for your highly literate and well-informed comment! I admit that in the future I"ll probably use the silver foil from Mora in France for safety. Amazing that "warka and varaq have the same root, until then I assumed "varqa" was hindi for silver - how naive! Do you know if gold varqa is also used in India, and if yes is it used indifferently with silver on various dishes, or are there recipes specifically meant to be decorated with gold?

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:18:47 GMT

Philippe, the silver foil is nothing like tin foil, it is so thin you don"t actually taste or feel it, let alone does it wreak havoc with your fillings. You have to try it!

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:10:54 GMT

Nathan, we are not talking rust but tarnishing here, and you can find unoxydized sheets in the book. People have been eating in and with silverware for centuries and there are still people around.

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:09:42 GMT

Ben, you can certainly also use gold leaf although I believe (not certain) that it is less common and hence less authentic, for what it"s worth. But if you fear that your guests would think it"s the shadow of the foil the leg of lamb came into when you bought it, then gold is your solution!

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:08:09 GMT

Ariun, those who can afford to eat silver in India are not those driving the population engine, methink!

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:07:15 GMT

Gizmar, at last a reader shares my enthusiasm for this ingredient. When the lamb comes out of the kitchen onto the table, it"s just gorgeous, glittering in the light with the smell getting everybody crazy. A royal dish.

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 15:05:52 GMT

Callipygia, thanks for visiting, I think the tavern owner"s daughter callypigian endowment might warrant such a silver tribute.

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 14:58:16 GMT

Claudia, silver foil is just like the gold dust you use on desserts, you ought to try it, it"s no trouble at all. Just slap it on the surface and you"re done!

fx

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 14:57:14 GMT

GunnCatt, you are wrong, edible silver has great appeal on dishes and it is nothing like tin foil.

Lyra

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 12:48:33 GMT

"In one sharp movement, firmly slap the paper on the leg of lamb like a pirate patting the landlord"s daughter"s backside in a Maracaibo tavern." Genius...I laughed my ass off and people at work probably thought I was crazy. That is one of the best lines I"ve seen on your website so far!lol....

parshu narayanan

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 04:12:24 GMT

Dear fx,Your photo-essay on varaq was outstanding. It"s the same word we encounter in your Moroccon pigeon pastille as Wark, and is Arabic, borrowed by Hindustani, for leaf/paper/sheet/layer. In the old feudal days, the varaq-wallas would come to the Haveli (manor, loosely speaking) with their leather sheets and mallets before important festivals. While the sweetmeats were being cooked in Brobdingnagian proportions by the family cooks, a mother or grandmother would part with a small bit of silver from the family hoard which would be beaten into sheets of varaq ready for decorating the sweets platters with. I once set almost set a fridge-frozen Indian sweetmeat on fire by attempting to warm it in the microwave - the varaq on the burfee started flashing! We are advised these days by our educated upper-middle class doctors to avoid commercial waraq because of adulteration. It is of course entirely tasteless and only a visual garnish.

bk

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 15:44:25 GMT

I actually tried a confectionary from India today that had silver foil. I searched for a website to verify it could be consumed and stumbled across this one. I expected a tinny taste, but it had none.

Philippe

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 09:31:59 GMT

I can feel the metal fillings in two of my teeth reacting just by looking at the photos ... :S

Luke

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 07:47:58 GMT

Silver oxide is brown to black, and leaf is so damn thin that there may as well be no distinction between superficial and deep. Nothing to see here, people.

ND

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 04:29:52 GMT

Ariun: all the "noble" metals are immune to rust, so far as I know. Rust is the result of oxidation (oxygen reacting with the metal, causing it to corrode), which is a bit different to simple tarnishing (also the result of an oxygen reaction, but only in a very superficial layer on the surface of the silver). In any case, tarnishing causes the surface of silver to turn a blue-black colour, and the rust on FX"s foils is brown�

Ariun

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 23:28:30 GMT

#16ND: "silver is immune to rust" Where"d you get this idea? Silver is definitely susceptible to tarnishing, which is analogous to rust.

ND

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 05:06:55 GMT

Beautiful! One thing that worries me, though, is that silver is immune to rust�the fact that the Lucknow foils seem very susceptible to it is a bit disturbing, no?

Ben

Tue, 1 Apr 2008 02:36:27 GMT

Will this work with gold leaf as well?

Ariun

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:47:38 GMT

India is the second most populous country in the world, so the silver foil can"t be doing any harm! ;)

gizmar

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:49:55 GMT

I"m totally mezmerized by the pictures - just wonderful.

Callipygia

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:44:50 GMT

Thanks for the terrific write up. What a poetic way to further honor the food. I also appreciate the consideration of what constitutes wealth.

Luke

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:36:43 GMT

Oh I caught the joke alright, but I can"t help but wonder if it"s really all that exaggerated. Perhaps I"m just too used to seeing cold machines in place of actual people. Consmerism can do that. Still, that said, I do find the use of silver very interesting. I was only aware of gold leaf before this article.

Claudia (cook eat FRET)

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:52:39 GMT

oh francois, i totally love this! not sure if i"ll go to the trouble, but i am so glad that you did because now i know it exists in the universe. i"d definitely try it though - and i have gold dust that i use on desserts and cookies around the holidays. it"s so pretty on my pumpkin cheesecake...

GunnCat

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:36:49 GMT

Very interesting read, but not something I am actively interested in trying out.

fx

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:50:40 GMT

Luke, I don"t know it there any heavy metals, that was just a joke. You can get very clean silver foil in confectionery supplies shops and they are actually used on many high-end artisan chocolates.

fx

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:49:40 GMT

Dave, no the food is not "tainted" by no tinny taste. It"s just your mind that assumes that since the ultra thin silver foil looks like tin foil, it must taste like tin foil. But it doesn"t and as you eat it it almost melts on the meat, so from up close you clearly see this is no tin foil.

fx

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:47:49 GMT

Jason, silver does not taste like anything, although some people definitely have a taste for silver!

fx

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:46:54 GMT

Paul, the silver turns this into a royal dish. Nothing like tin foil, mind you. I threw in some comments about the heavy metals as a joke, but really with the small quantities they"ll keep you healthy!

Luke

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:38:05 GMT

If not for the possibility of heavy metal contamination, I"d say that this is a pretty good idea. Aside from being pretty, silver is quite effective at killing pathogens while not being particularly toxic to humans.

Dave Bowker

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:32:58 GMT

Apart from over all decoration, I can only imagine that the flavour of the meat is tainted by a tinny taste.

Jason

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:26:51 GMT

fx, How did this silver "condiment" taste?