Food for Thought

India is diverse! We’ve heard that a thousand times over. With reference to the cultures, languages spoken, geography, climate, cloth, clothes-dressing styles etcetera. Obviously the diversity holds true with reference to food as well. You have regional specialities and then the same dish made differently in each region and ‘food fights’ break out all over the place with people vying for the titles of ‘best biriyani’ or ‘best chaats’ or ‘best dosas’ and even ‘best golgappa’.

How can one objectively decide though? How can one be the best universally? Taste is so subjective! Food is so subjective! India’s diversity extends to the various dishes and foods made, grown, cooked and produced in the country. There are diverse ingredients, diverse gravies, diverse tastes that are produced, diverse renditions of the same dish and diverse reactions rendered thus.

No matter what one’s heart, stomach, tongue craves you can be sure you can find it on the streets of India. I am of course referring to the thriving Street food ‘industry’ famous in India.

As kids we’ve all been told not to eat anything from the vendors on the street and told graphically and extensively of the ‘untold’ miseries that those indulgences can result in and in many a case the warnings have proved true and yet nothing deters the street food industry! Maybe it is the sheer population and the basic necessity for sustenance through consumption of food? Maybe it is the poverty in India and the price of street food that acts as a motivating factor? Maybe it is the population size and the poverty combined and the easy, quick and successful employment opportunities provided by the ‘industry’. Or maybe it is just the Food!? Maybe it is that unbeatable taste? Maybe it is the secret recipe with that secret ingredient of it being sold on the dusty, dirty, grimy streets of India. Maybe there is no other more authentic source for local flavour than your street-corner food vendor. Perhaps the taste of India is on its streets (in its street food).

An outsider when asked what the most distinctive or characteristic flavour of Indian food is, usually has a standard response of ‘spice’ or ‘lots of masala taste’. While certain foods will of course be spicy or make use of some masala or the other, this response is highly skewed and is hardly representative of the rich (with flavour) and diverse palates that Indian street food caters to!

One can find almost sickly sweet rasagullas, jalebis dripping with sticky gur on the streets of India as often as spicy mollaga bhajjis (chillies deep fried in oil) and vada pav with a spicy chutney and a dash of sour lemon essence squeezed into it with a salted fried chilli stuck in the middle for dramatic effect. Diversity in tastes is the real speciality of Indian street food and any Indian worth his salt (and pepper and masala and gunpowder) can testify to that!

What I find truly appreciable about the Indian street food industry is that it is so dynamic and bounded by no limits. You have all sorts of cuisines available and by no means just indigenous. Not only do you find dosas (of South India) in delhi and the katti rolls (of kolkatta) in kerala but you find exotic international cuisines surfacing in all streets of India! What, with momos becoming the rage and the pizzas and burgers never going out of style.

There is seasonal change too! In the summers you find fresh fruit juice vendors churning out ice-cold sugar cane juice, mosambi juice, lime juice, watermelon juice, not to mention the ice on sticks coloured with flavoured water (the ultimate kala khatta!) and the many ice-cream vendors. You might not think it when you think of Indian street food but health consciousness seeps in at some stage and you find a lot of spiced watermelon pieces, salted cucumber strips and tender coconuts with water and malai sellers to help you beat the heat.

In winter (of India... basically not the summer season) one looks forward to the hot teas and hot momos or the freshly made warm katti rolls that warm you inside and out and the golden brown dosas with the tri-colour chutneys or the piping hot pav bhajji that burns the hand that tries to quell it.

Tea is one of India’s favourite beverages and you will always find a tea stand on every street corner (which is the promise Cafe Coffee Day has been making, at least in Bangalore but it is next to impossible to oust a chai walla from his chosen spot).

Chai walas are walking talking caterers and you find them not just on the streets but also at railway stations and on the trains. The difference between the chai wallas in various regions of India is only in the way they say the word ‘chai’. From ‘choy’, ‘cha’, ‘che’, ‘chai’ to ‘tea’, the unmistakable wake up call to passengers aboard a train - the word is a joy to hear and the first sip is literally an eye-opening experience. The warmth spreads everywhere and a sense of purpose is restored to weary travellers.

Railway food hawkers are a class apart. Foods parcelled in newspapers have their own taste. The chutney and side dish all mixed up with the breads or rice has a nicely deeply settled, well mixed and absorbed feel to it.

Another great thing about street food cooks is their constant experimentation and reinventing that allows for brilliant breakthroughs that blow our minds and tantalize our taste buds. Egg dosa is one such dish that I came across in a hole in the wall kind of joint. So the proprietor, entrepreneur, cook, accountant and waiter are all one and this enterprising guy makes this unique dosa which when he flips over on the tava, smashes an egg yolk and white onto it in the nick of time to give it an egg coating on one side which is of course flavoured with some salt and chilli powder. This unique two in one concoction is served with a spicy and salty side dish made of no one knows what and no one ever asks but is more delicious than words can describe! Other testaments to experimental cooking in Indian street food are Chinese bhel, flavoured boiled corn etcetera which are as common as dirt (in Indian street food literally!) today.

A speciality snack available on the beaches of Chennai is ‘manga orrapodi’ which is basically raw mango strips slit into perforated pieces and spiced with salt and chilli powder. It is hard to say how much on there is sand and salt blown in by the sea breeze and how much is salted chilli powder but what can be said is it is absolutely to die for and will give you a sore throat that’ll last a week after just two pieces!

Boiled and salted groundnuts or roasted peanuts with a dash of mustard oil and chopped onions, tomatoes and chillies combined with a cornflakes like substitute is another popular Indian street food that is sold in newspaper cones and cost hardly a few rupees but goes a long way in satiating what the tongue wants.

Each region, state even city in India have their speciality dishes which are hotly contested for by others who claim to make it better but I suppose ‘to each his own’ fits here.

We’ve all heard of A.P.J Abdul Kalam’s partiality to the golgappas from Juhu beach and Rahul Gandhi’s fetish for Lucknow’s famous tunday kababs. We’re all slaves to our preferences and tastes one way or another.

To a Mumbaikar the Chowpatty Beach salty-spicy golgappa is God while the ‘Calcutta Chaat’ golgappa is sweet and serene to a Bengali!

Fish fry on the streets of every coastally situated land in India makes the ‘best’ fish fry without a doubt!

Biriyani (chicken, mutton, fish) is the speciality of Lucknow, Andhra, Kerala!? Well actually all to be politically correct (and respectively).

Which is the original and correct taste of sambar? Is it sweet or spicy? Is it salty or sour? Which vegetables can be used in it?

Which is the true rasam? Pepper? Lemon? Tomato 

The right answer is whichever you like best! That is the best part about street food. There is so much scope for subjectivity. One can choose what one likes best. There is customisation, innovation and endless choice! It is the dream market scenario where demand and supply seem limitless and both the cook and the consumer are king. Money is hardly an object and the divide between the haves and have nots in monetary terms is much reduced when it is the love for Indian street food that unites them.

Food is a basic necessity,

Of demand and supply there is no scarcity!

Salty, Spicy, Sour and/or Sweet

The four S’s that flavour what we eat.

Let different regions and recipes not be a separator

Let taste and love for good food be the uniter.

Food in India is anything we eat

Authentic Indian food is found on the street

Disclaimer

All opinions expressed in the above are entirely my own. Formed basis years of eating Indian street food (and surviving to tell the tale).

Food is something that I’m very passionate about and I wrote what I felt about this topic primarily through experiential learning’s and takeaways that I’ve gotten over the years, personally. Certain facts have of course been picked up on the way from the news and word of mouth, which I have cited informally in the above piece.

This theme and my takeaways from it have been expressed in a way that does justice to the topic and the analysis is about and in the passion and enjoyment that food excites in me. I have done my best to explain the foundation and formation of my opinions (with relish). The real source is of course the food and my essay is the flavour of my feelings towards it.