Biryani Turns a Bowl of Rice Into a Treasure

There’s hardly a meal in the south of India that doesn’t include rice, whether it’s a pilaf, pulao mixed with roasted nuts and dried fruit, or curd rice, a hot-weather South Indian specialty of yogurt with rice, herbs, and toasted spices that, on a steamy day is the only thing you can tolerate eating. For many Indians, no meal is complete without rice.

“Rice was a sacred...