@klyeoh paints a great picture. Although being Pakistani you might think I could give you a better idea, but 3 long trips to China in as many years have taught me that an “outsider” can often experience and distill a culture in a completely unique, yet legitimate, way.
This is a difficult discussion for me to have online. I have far too much I want to say and structuring it would take a long time. (And most of it would be irrelevant.)
In general, avid food lovers like those on this forum are rare everywhere. So many cultures used to be all about their food – Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Italian, French, etc. – yet in the present day I would trust anyone on this board over the average person from these cultures, and it’s not even close. For example, I would trust @klyeoh over the average Pakistani walking down the street who tells you she knows the best haleem place, it’s just like her grandmother made, and her family’s patronized it for over 15 years, etc etc.
From @klyeoh’s pictures, the only ones that really brought me back to summers I would spend in Pakistan, when it really was all about the food, was the nehari.
Also, the same dish cooked at home can be different from restaurant food. For example, traditionally nehari was beef based, but home cooks started making chicken and lamb versions.
In Punjab, beef is not very common in home cooking. In fact, I had beef maybe a handful of times a year growing up. My cousins would joke that you only get beef when a cow falls dead on the road, that’s why you have to cook nehari all night to make it safe to eat. My aunts always made ground “beef” with goat meat. I always thought this beef aversion was a carryover from Hindu tradition, but I’ve never researched it.
Yes, goat/lamb meat is way gamier in Pakistan. If you get local lamb or goat in America, it’s actually gamey, too, much more than the regular goat/lamb , which is gamier still than the imported meat from Australia and New Zealand that we are getting used to now. Next week is Eid Al-Adha and we’ll drive to a farm in Western Maryland to sacrifice a goat. It will cook differently than the regular goat we get from the Halal butcher. Likely, we’ll have to use a pressure cooker.
I agree food in the north has less heat and spice, but I’m not sure if I would say Karachi packs more chili-heat than Lahore. I think, in general, modern palates are much “wimpier” than before. In fact, the most surprising change for me in modern Pakistani food has been the lower heat levels The excuse is always, “Think of the children!” People can eat what they want, etc. My issue is many of the dishes’ flavor profiles fail without heat.
I find the average food of Punjab’s smaller towns much more interesting than Lahore’s food. If you can escape the big cities, you can experience something different from the regular stuff on the Internet. For example, you can find mithai (sweets) shops where all the sweets actually taste unique and different, not just like sugar and milk. But these shops days are numbered, just like the cheesemakers in Europe. What I wish I could do is explore the food of Sindh and Balochistan. However, my family acts like these places are the Wild West. Heck, most of my family would be scared to eat in that nehari shop.
I warned you, I would ramble and hardly any of it would be relevant. Also, by next week, I’ll have completely different opinions about stuff, so don’t quote me.
