Street Food: The Popular taste of India

As featured in British Street Food award 2012: http://britishstreetfood.co.uk/2012/01/the-city-that-never-sleeps/

Its Business as usual, for some. Street food is a part of the fabric of life in India.

With more than two million people, embracing the streets of Kolkata as home, a basic necessity to fulfill is the fire in their bellies. In search of my roots, I made a trip to India to discover what makes Street food, more than a tasty morsel to feed the appetite of an ever evolving nation.

Kolkata marches forward, as a Bengali Babu craves a nibble of fritto misto India in many ways is a subcontinent in itself, when it comes to the land mass, the weather patterns, the topography and more importantly the history that it proudly reminisces upon. Apart from being the land of a thousand deities, and snake charmers: India has been a land with innumerable cultural imprints, thanks to foreign invasions and people travelling far far away, and bringing back the rest of the best abroad. Just as any other civilization though, the turn of the wheel has brought about a revolutionary change in culture and eating habits of the masses. As much as population explosion is a burden to the GDP, and emerging economy, it also acts as a grounding factor when it comes to popular eating culture, i.e.street food and above all the localization and seasonality of it all.

Whats your spice chart? Everyone, who is Indian at heart, grew up on the Joy of (Chai) tea. Thanks to the British Raj, and its effort to break Chinese monotony, tea gardens were planted in Darjeeling and the foot hills of South India and soon made it the most affordable and prevalent national beverage amongst the masses.

Tea Houses come in many sizes and shapes

Variety is definitely the spice in India. Taste for instance the Jhal Muri(an ingenious tongue tickling spiced mixture of salt and sugar, crisp and soft, fresh and cooked in a mouthful)Simple as it may seem, to decipher, this is one dish made of puffed up rice, drizzle of pungent mustard oil dressing, along with deftly chopped macedonia of chilli,tomatoes,boiled potatoes,dessicated coconuts, fresh coriander leaves, a few monkey nuts and all things bright and beautiful in small measures.Savoured out of disposable paper bag, lovingly called thonga(not to be confused with anything lacey!)this is a taste that thrives in its variety and in genuine simplicity.

Dried fish is a unique and delish, food for thought! One great element about Street Food that definitely sets it apart is the convenience of delivery and the power to adapt to the location and environment of the site of delivery. From the unpaved cobbled steps of a village by the sea, to an up market mall in the heart of Kolkatas financial district, you are bound to find punters enjoying a plate of Chola tikki (chickpeas and potato cakes) and pao bhajis with the same fervor and zeal no matter what the remit is.

Filet o fish, on the go! Over the years globalization and the meteoric rise of middle class has definitely ushered ina new wave of sizzlers and bottled beverages with added hops, but true to its name and origin there is a strong and repeat custom for street food, which makes it the food for each day of the year, as opposed to being a treat saved only for a festive occasion. Growing up on limited resources in my early college days in Kolkata, offered me an excellent platform to savor the joys of street food almost out of a facultative necessity, and still manages to bring back water to my reminiscing mouth. Having waded far way from India, aided by my passion for cooking and an inherent urge to discover newer challenges, I had spent eight years away from my home,Kolkaka,"The city of joy".Nostalgia,and the urge to breathe in the cosmic city air, soak in the smells and sights of road side food stalls, that roar to life as the dusk falls, was so demanding that the same day that I landed in Kolkata airport, I binged on a dinner solely composed of umpteen varieties of street food delicacies, with all the trimmings of soot, polluted water and human warming of an ever thickening population. In Kolkata, the city that never sleeps, a lot of the economy still exists on, barter system. A rather funny anecdote unfolded when I approached the humble, yet enterprising street food maker, and convinced him to share his secret recipe for a tummy tickling, Egg roll. I had to part with the sports section of my day's newspaper,(and explain why footballers

were paid stupid amounts of money back in England) in exchange of eagerly jotted down steps, and promptly clicked pictures on my smart phone camera. Not a bad deal after all! As I munched happily through every bite full of the egg roll, reminiscing the past, and wary not to loose even a single bite to just marginal utility, I was unaware of a trickle of ketchup streaming down my face, but what did I care! I was having the best meal of my life, and I was enjoying it on the streets of Kolkata. The future of street food culture in India is a tradition strongly rooted in its simplicity and economic viability. I am certain that modern technology and evolving tastes will only help in tickling the taste buds of millions of punters, who derive simple gastro pleasures out of it.

Kolkata Egg (Kathi)roll: Feeds the imagination of 1 hungry taste wilderness adventurer Ready in minutes Ingredients: One Flour tortilla One Egg One Red Onion Sliced thinly Half a cucumber sliced thinly One Green Chilli chopped finely A drizzle of Vegetable Oil Non branded Ketchup and Chilli sauce One Lime To make one: Drizzle some vegetable oil on a pre heated non stick pan. Place the flour tortilla on it, and fry for 10 seconds, on both sides. Crack open the egg, on top of the tortilla, and scramble it. Cook the egg, for a few minutes, and flip over the tortilla, inorder to cook the egg firmly. Remove the tortilla from the pan, and place on a dinner plate. Sprinkle the raw salad of sliced red onions, chopped chillies and cucumber on one edge of the tortilla. Top with a proper squirt of ketchup, chilli sauce and a few drops of lime juice. Roll the tortilla, from one end to another in the shape of a cigar. Wrap three quarters of the Egg roll in a newspaper, and serve hot, with a chilled bottle of Thumbs up! Taste the thunder of life!