Just a few weeks in the past, I used to be at a bookshop and requested the proprietor if that they had any books on phuchka. “I feel you imply panipuri?” he queried, his eyes narrowing. Not wishing to interact within the lengthy and arduous debate that might be essential to show him flawed, I smiled politely and nodded. Mollified, he instructed me how a lot he loved consuming panipuri after which directed me to a magisterial guide on Indian delicacies.
A fast flick thru the index of the guide revealed no references to phuchka. There was, nevertheless, a single quotation for panipuri – it learn “see golgappa”. I returned the guide to the shelf and determined to not inform the proprietor how the guide had relegated his beloved panipuri to the standing of a mere synonym. As somebody who cherished books, he didn’t need to have his coronary heart damaged by them.
After I moved from Kolkata to Mumbai in 2010, there have been some ways during which this new metropolis felt alien, not least of which was the shift in street-food lexicon. Gone have been the times of egg roll, barbecue, and mutton chop being commonplace roadside grub. As an alternative, the bustling lanes of Mumbai supplied vada pav, bhajia pav, misal pav, and in the event you craved selection, pav bhaji. There was no meals merchandise, it appeared, which might escape the pav’s embrace.
Within the midst of all this bread, the invention of panipuri had kindled hope. Right here was a snack that lastly appeared acquainted, a snack that resembled its portly cousin from the East and will, maybe, quell each starvation and home-sickness. I had popped that first panipuri into my mouth, anticipating the explosion of flavours that phuchka produced: the tang of lime, the warmth of chilli, the lip-smacking piquancy of the water.
Think about then my consternation, once I realised what seems to be like phuchka and looks like phuchka doesn’t at all times style like phuchka. It was my encounter with its deceitful doppelganger that made me curious in regards to the provenance of phuchka and its many variations so well-liked throughout the nation. What’s their story and which ones can lay declare to being the unique?
In accordance with web folklore, it was Draupadi of the Mahabharata who created this divine dish. Throughout their days of exile, so the legend goes, the Pandavas needed to make do with meagre sources and Kunti, their mom, needed to check her daughter-in-law’s frugality. So, she requested Draupadi to conjure a meal out of leftover potato sabzi and a little bit wheat dough. Realizing that the dough was inadequate to make chapatis for all 5 brothers, Draupadi graced them, and the world, together with her modern invention: a small, crunchy shell (the deep-fried puri) stuffed with the sabzi.
This fantasy has seeped up to now into the general public consciousness that it even impressed a phuchka-themed Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata. But, it’s tough to swallow this story entire – significantly, since Draupadi, Kunti, and the Pandavas would have by no means set eyes on a potato. The tuber arrived on Indian shores solely within the seventeenth century, courtesy of European merchants.
In his guide Digesting India: A Journey Author’s Subcontinental Adventures with the Tummy, the humourist Zac O’ Yeah refers to an alternate origin story of the panipuri. In medieval instances, the Yamuna was believed to be the trigger, and provider, of ailments. It was the royal doctor on the imperial courtroom in Delhi, he writes, who got here up with the thought of a weight loss program “wealthy in sure spices” to fight the virulent waters of the river. This disinfectant mixture of spices and condiments supposedly birthed the “traditional chaat masala” we all know and love at the moment.
Whereas attributing medicinal motive to chaat and phuchka does make this concept extra enticing, these tales are probably apocryphal. The truth is, if one have been to go by the phrases of famend educational and meals historian, Pushpesh Pant, searching for to find the place and time of chaat’s conception is itself a flawed enterprise. In an interview discussing the historical past of Indian delicacies, Pant brushed away a query on the antecedents of panipuri as a misguided and fruitless inquiry. Maybe he’s proper. Maybe it’s futile to aim to isolate a single level of origin for such mercurial fare, each aspect of which is inconstant.
Relying on the state, metropolis and even neighbourhood you end up in, you might encounter variances in the kind of puri, filling, and water (each flavour and temperature) being utilized by the native sellers. Manoj Chaurasia, who hails from Varanasi, has been promoting chaat in Mumbai for over 22 years. He takes pleasure in making his personal chaat masala – an intricate mixture of spices, which is a staunchly guarded secret – and presents uncommon perception into the refined regional variations that make street-food so distinctive.
The sweetened water well-liked together with his panipuri-craving prospects in Mumbai is made, he tells me, by soaking khajur, or dates. Whereas, in Benares, it’s the tartness of imli, or tamarind, that defines the meetha pani, or candy water, added to the golgappa. Curiously, the idiosyncratic golgappa water additionally finds point out within the works of the pioneering meals historian KT Achaya, who tantalisingly described it as “chilly, fiery pepper-mustard liquid concoction”.
Then there may be, in fact, the matter of the filling – the raison d’etre of the dish.
I had learnt the distinction that filling could make once I had taken my first chunk of a panipuri. As an alternative of a fiery ball of mashed potatoes – studded with chickpeas and chopped inexperienced chillies, and seasoned with salt, spices, and lime juice – what rested on my tongue was the velvety ragda, a mildly spiced curry of boiled white peas. (On reflection, it might have been worse. It might have been a filling of moong sprouts). Talking to me whereas serving his prospects at a road nook in Bandra, Chaurasia confirmed that almost all of his patrons desire the ragda. Potatoes, if used, are usually sliced and never mashed, with the spice combine sprinkled on high. It’s the approach folks prefer it right here, he shrugs.
Kurush Dalal, the eminent archaeologist and culinary anthropologist, echoes this final sentiment. In a dialog with me in regards to the origins, historical past and types of panipuri, he describes the puri fairly eloquently – and exactly – as “a vessel”. Because the puri progressively advanced from the kachori, he explains, it was the creativeness of the maker, and the urge for food of the eater, which dictated the filling it might comprise.
Be it potatoes, ragda, and even bhel (a South Gujarat speciality, I’m stunned to study from Dalal), what you may put in a puri relied on what you may promote. The shopper, in spite of everything, is king and it was the distinctive tastes of consumers throughout the breadth of this nation, that formed the numerous types of this delicacy.
As with a lot else in historical past, phuchka, too, refuses to be shackled by the notions of purity and can’t be pinned right down to a single, unique supply. Certainly, its many avatars, and the devotion they arouse of their respective fiefdoms, mirror the range of our nation.
There is part of me that claims I ought to recognize this vibrancy; that I ought to rejoice the cultural milieu that permits so many sorts of this cherished snack to exist; that I ought to eschew juvenile chauvinism, and study to deal with all of the totally different variations with out bias or prejudice. Maybe at some point, I’ll hearken to that a part of me. However for now, I’d kill to get a good plate of phuchka in Mumbai.
Rohan Banerjee is a lawyer in Mumbai.