Opinion Express View on Lalu and Rahul in the kitchen: A photogenic moment of collaboration
For some, Champaran Mutton is the familiar taste of home. For two politicians, it was a great political metaphor
A commendable rise in profile for a rustic dish that, 10 years ago, few had even heard of. 
Long before Rahul Gandhi and Lalu Prasad got together to cook an aluminium handi full of Champaran Mutton for a video that has gone viral, the preparation had been catapulted into the rarefied category of Indian dishes which find mention in the Michelin Guide.
For close to a decade, it had been winning fans everywhere, from humble eateries in Patna and Noida to upscale restaurants in Gurgaon and Mumbai, finally gaining an international following after making it to a James Beard-winning chef’s menu in New York. A commendable rise in profile for a rustic dish that, 10 years ago, few had even heard of.
As anyone who has ever watched a cooking show would know, a significant part of a dish’s appeal lies in its story — of a grandmother who adapted an existing recipe to suit her family’s taste, or a delicious accident concocted in a royal kitchen or a dish that travelled with a family or community to a new land and home.
Thanks to the haziness around its origins, the story of Champaran Mutton is not so easy to tell. Does it really have deep roots in Bihar’s Champaran? Or has it been adapted from another mutton preparation, also flavoured with sliced onion, black pepper, mustard oil and whole garlic pods, which doesn’t have quite so evocative a name? Maybe it is just another Indian restaurant invention, like Butter Chicken, which has made up for its lack of history with its bold, emphatic flavours.
Perhaps, this lack of traceable history is, in the case of Champaran Mutton, a blessing. It allows different meanings and stories to be layered over the succulence of its meat and sweet stickiness of the cooked garlic — a familiar taste of home for some, a reminder of the joys of simple things for others and a photogenic moment of collaboration for two politicians.
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