TRIED AND TASTED
Food walks
across the country, from Madurai to Dehradun, are linking history, culture and
cuisine, bringing down barriers and breaking stereotypes. Often, the takers are
locals wanting to know more
“We
have three kinds of food walkers in our country: Foreign, local and
hyper-local. Among these, the hyper-locals are the most difficult to please,”
says Kurush Dalal, an archaeologist and culinary anthropologist.
On the Khaki Tours food walk in Bhendi
Bazaar, Mumbai, stops include the mausoleum of the Syednas, the spiritual head
of the Bohri community, as well as streetside eateries serving up everything
from tiranga kebabs to patrel biryani, where colocasia leaves are coated with
masala, slow-cooked and layered with tender meat.
In India, where every
city and town has a different food culture, food walks have become an important
and increasingly popular part of the tourism culture.
In Kolkata, you can
trace, in what you eat, the influences of British, Portuguese and Chinese
cultures on the city’s khau gallis or food lanes. In Delhi, you can go off the
beaten track with a walk that takes you through an Afghan refugee colony that’s
only about 30 years old.
In Madurai, it leads you
to idlis ‘as soft as a jasmine blossom’.
A good food walk links
history, culture and cuisine, tracing the roots of the local community, as well
as the influences that have shaped it in recent times. It’s about breaking
stereotypes — one reason there are vegetarian highlights in Old Delhi, and in
Kolkata.
“Once in Puducherry, I
saw a Tamilian man in a veshti and tilak, buying a wedge of strong cheese and a
baguette. That really broke a stereotype for me,” says Pritha Sen, a food
researcher and historian.
Sen adds that a major shift
has come in recent years, driven by social media. “There, people are always
posting about food and travel, so there is a need to post something different.
Even before they ask people what to see, they ask about what and where to eat,”
she says.
“This is helping them
discover more cuisines, and through food, experience more of the culture. I
think an important next step would be food walks for children, so this exposure
can start early.”
It’s a way to meet real
people, adds Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal, a food writer and consultant, and
recognise what you have in common as well as the interesting ways in which your
cultures are different.
BHOPAL:
IS THERE A BIT OF OPIUM IN THAT TEA?
The
food walk organised by IG Bhopal Photography combines food, culture, history —
and photography. “The city has a wonderful mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian
dishes, because of the heavy influence of Marwaris and Jains,” says Mudra
Keswani, a food blogger under the name of The Super Chatori, who usually
conducts this walk. In old Bhopal, the walk starts at the Taj-ulMasjid, the
country’s largest mosque. At Mamaji Jalebi Wala, walkers try the uniquely
Bhopali breakfast of jalebi-poha, eaten together for a delicious sweet-salty
mix. They then head to Chowk Bazar for chaat. “One dish we tell our
non-vegetarian guests to not miss is the Bhopali chicken rezala, made with
coriander and a lot of fried onion and garlic. The recipe came from the Begums’
kitchens and is unique to this city.” The walk would be incomplete without
Sulemani tea from Raju Tea Stall. “The tea is thick, a little bit salty and
there’s a rumour that it is so addictive because it has a little bit of opium
in it!” “Sprinkled in between are hidden gems like Sonu Monu Ke Namkeen, which
serves authentic mawa baati,” says Sachin Joshi, founder of the group.
DRINK
LIKE A FREEDOM FIGHTER IN KOLKATA
To
Suddhabrata Deb of It’s in Asia, the Hungry Roads walk, in Kolkata, is as much
about snacking as it is about time travel. “Small portions of food with large
portions of cultural history,” he says. “We start at Shyambazaar, where a lot
of the food is vegetarian, something that always surprises people.” Next is the
iconic College Street for cutlets at Dilkhusha Cabin. “People are often
surprised to learn that, even about 70 years ago, eating chicken was considered
a sin among Bengali Hindus. Mutton was part of ritual sacrifices, but chicken
was a strange idea brought over by the British. So the restaurants that served
it covered the doorway in curtains and had the word cabin in their name.” At
the 101-year-old Paramount Cold Drinks & Syrups, walkers are told how — to
combat the British tea culture (they wanted a new market, so they were pushing
tea over traditional drinks) — the legendary chemist and industrialist Acharya
Prafulla Chandra Ray invented daaber sharbat, a beverage made with tender
coconut water whose formula is still a closely guarded secret. It remains one
of the most popular items on the menu. Next is Favourite Cabin, believed to be
Kolkata’s oldest tea shop, a 101-year-old establishment where Masterda Surya
Sen, the teacher turned rebel leader, planned for the freedom struggle with his
compatriots. The three-hour walk then goes through Chitpur, stopping for
biryani and sandesh, and ending at one of Kolkata’s old Chinese areas, Tiretta
Bazaar.
ULTA
TANDOOR: AN AFGHAN FOOD WALK IN DELHI
The
words ‘Delhi food’ call to mind juicy kebabs, parathas drenched in butter, and
lots of chaat. But, in Bhogal in South Delhi, lies a slice of Afghanistan, with
a rich culture of food that has enough similarities to entice the Indian
palate, and enough differences to make it unique. These Afghans settled in
Delhi in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While some returned after the
overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, many chose to remain in their new home,
leading to a permanent Afghan settlement, says Anubhav Sapra, founder of Delhi
Food Walks. “It’s a bazaar area, but one where most of the shop names are
written in Afghani. The Afghan walk happens on request and most requests come
from locals.” The walk starts at tandoor shops known as nanwais, which make
delicious Afghan breads. “Their tandoors also look different, more like pizza
ovens, and the breads are stuck on the outer walls.” Among the most popular
varieties is a sweet, crusty, khajuri nan shaped like a date. The next stop is
at a shop selling bolani, a rectangular variant of our own alu paratha. You can
also try the sambosa, a variant of the samosa that is square and filled with
meat.” Sapra says the highlight of the tour is Afghanistan’s national dish, the
Kabuli pilav (made with Basmati rice, carrots and dried fruit) and a dish
called mantu, like momos but topped with chana and served with a very sour
yoghurt. The tour ends with a plate of sheer yakh, Afghani ice cream made with
thickened buffalo milk and a saffron flavour. “No one can ever finish a plate
by themselves.” To Sapra, the best part of the walk is the ambience and the
warmth of the Afghan people.
COLONIAL
COOKIES, LAUKI LADDOOS IN DEHRADUN
Four
years ago, a small group of heritage enthusiasts from Dehradun started an
organisation called Been There Doon That. “The city was being modernised,” says
Lokesh Ohri, a cofounder, “so we started conducting walks to help people
discover hidden treasures.” Food soon got woven in too. The walk now starts at
Dehradun’s Paltan Bazaar. “When British platoons began arriving here in the
1850s, they camped here and this market grew up nearby,” says Ohri. The first
dish to be sampled is the green and distinctly Dehraduni lauki ka laddoo at
Kumar Sweets, whose family is originally from Rawalpindi in Pakistan. Like them
many people came to the Doon valley and settled here after Partition. Apart
from food, some of them sell things like dry fruits, says Ohri. They then
proceed to Chaatwali Gully, familiar from the many times it has featured in
stories by Doon’s much-loved resident author, Ruskin Bond. Next is one of the
oldest bakeries in the city, Sunrise Bakers, whose pista cookies are legendary.
“We move on then to the katlamba, originally from Pakistan and a special
delicacy in Dehradun.” These are thick, large, deep-fried and multi-layered
puris served with dry chole and a fermented carrot pickle. Chetan Puriwala is
the next destination where people eat aate ka laddoo, a traditional sweet made
with wheat, jaggery and dry fruit. The walk ends in the middle of the bazaar
with Bolti Bandh paan, so big that you can’t talk while eating it!
IN
MUMBAI, HISTORIC TALES, A BIRYANI WITHOUT RICE
If
you’re a meat lover in Mumbai, then Khaki Tours’ Mohalla Munch is the food walk
for you. It goes through Bhendi Bazaar, one of the oldest Muslim areas in the
city, through the bylanes of Bohri Mohalla. “The entire walk covers barely 1 km
in 90 minutes, because there are so many stops, and so many stories,” says
Bharat Gothoskar, founder of Khaki Tours. The food of this area comes from the
Bohri, Khoja and Konkani Muslim traditions. In the Bohri meals, courses
alternate between khara (spicy / salty) and meetha (sweet). “We have about 15
pitstops, which include special kebabs with coriander seeds and a chana curry
laced with spleen!” Most people are intrigued by the Baara Handi (12 Pots)
restaurant, where different parts of the goat or buffalo are cooked in 12
different pots, and a serving is made up of a mix of the 12 in whatever
combinations you choose — bheja, pichhota, paya. “Some people prefer bhel, a delightful
combination of all 12.” The walk also stops at the century-old Firoze Farsan,
which serves a biryani without rice called patrel biryani — colocasia leaves or
patrel, coated in a paste made of gram flour and assorted spices, rolled up and
slow-cooked. The masala-flecked meat is cooked separately. Once ready, the
colocasia is added to the meat. The stories that go with the food serve as the
perfect tadka, says Gothoskar, laughing. “We show walkers Temkar Mohalla, where
[underworld don] Dawood Ibrahim was born. And Raudat Tahera, the mausoleum of
the Syednas, the spiritual head of the Bohri community.” A favourite among
almost all walkers, young and old, desi and foreigner, is the Sancha ice-cream.
“The sancha is a type of cast — a wooden bucket on the outside and metal
container inside. Salt and ice is put in the outer container to freeze a
mixture of milk and fruits in the inner container to make a very unusual kind
of ice-cream.” Also very popular is the Chicken Kasturi Sandwich at Jilani’s,
named for the kasuri methi that gives it a light-bitter aftertaste. The walk
generally ends at India restaurant, which sells shallow-fried Karachi rolls. To
Gothoskar, this typifies the cultural confluence that makes the area unique.
FROM
ROMANS TO ARABS, WORLDS COLLIDE IN MADURAI
Romans,
Arabs, Saurashtrians and Indian deities — these four themes meet in the
Storytrails culinary walk in Madurai. The city’s recorded history goes back to
the 3rd century BC, so the stories are rich and the food, varied. “We walk through
the bylanes of old Madurai, starting near the Meenakshi Amman temple,” says
Swarnaprada Jayaraj, regional head of Storytrails. Along the way, guests sample
dishes from restaurants and street vendors as Jayaraj tells tales seeped in
history. There’s the iconic Murugan Idli Shop famous for its mallipoo idli,
known to be ‘as soft as a jasmine blossom.’ Next comes Jigarthanda (literally,
‘a drink that cools your heart’), at a shop called Famous Jigarthanda. “They
say the Arab traders who came to Madurai for business wanted a drink that
resembled their faluda and had a cooling effect in the tremendous heat of the
city. Jigarthanda was made for them with sugar, almond gum, sarsaparilla root
syrup and ice-cream. It’s unique to Madurai,” Jayaraj says. Also on the menu, a
dish that the Saurashtrian traders brought to Madurai in the 16th century. Made
from deep-fried spinach, it became the keerai vadai and remains a specialty of
Madurai. “Ancient records show that the people of Madurai have always loved to
eat and drink,” Jayaraj says.
WordOfMouth
I
have grown up here and I had always thought that Dehradun didn’t have any
special foods. But on my Been There Doon That walk, I discovered great food and
fantastic stories. For example, I tasted lauki ka laddoo for the first time,
and the taste is not too sweet and not too bland, it’s perfect. And it’s lauki.
Fascinating.
·
Madhusree Ghosh madhusree.ghosh@htlive.com
HTBR 17FEB19
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