Food, what is basic for human existence, has also become one of the booming industries in the country and across the world. Given that the young Indians were now exploring , they’re developing a pan-India taste, becoming aware of dishes of other cultures and regions, of street food that were earlier confined to only that part of the country, said Pushpesh Pant, former JNU professor and food critic.
Pant was in conversation with journalist and author Vir Sanghvi on ‘Kolkata’s Tryst with Taste’ at the
Times Litfest Kolkata
at Swabhumi on Sunday.
Recounting his various gastronomical experiences, Pant recalled it was one his barbers who told him about petai parota and ghugni, essentially a Kolkata street food, never quite gentrified. Now, the curious minds and taste buds were “discovering” these dishes that belonged to a different social strata, Pant said.
Also, home-cooked dishes from Kerala to Ladkahi yak milk cheese were becoming familiar to everyone.
When Sanghvi asked about Punjabification of food, Pant pointed out that the trend had made us forget about all the other daals but kaali daal and yellow daal. “Yellow daal is everything. People have forgotten that we have mung daal of different kinds and chholar daal, which can also be called yellow daal.”
As Sanghvi asked about butter chicken, supposedly the most popular Punjabi dish, Pant laughed it off as “one of the biggest cons”, along with paneer. He pointed out that butter chicken and daal Bukhara, the signature dishes of Moti Mahal, were actually created out of necessity. Tomato puree and butter were added to leftovers and voila, your favouritre dish was ready. “You butter up someone and you have whatever you want,” Pant joked. And according to him, tomato was like the “drug pushed outside schools”. When added to butter chicken, it gave the eaters, especially kids, something sweet and tasty that they could enjoy. It also saved cooks a lot of trouble, as they could use the puree for multiple dishes, ranging from paneer to chicken.
Sanghvi asked Pant wasn’t there a shift in the trend. Kids were moving towards pasta and pizza but paneer and tomato sauce still ruled the roost even there, said Pant, joking about his dislike for paneer. But he quickly added that people might not know what original Chinese food might actually taste like, they were not scared of trying out new things, and meat of all forms.
Sanghvi wondered if the popularity of junk food was driving India to a US-like obesity scene. But Pant pointed out that India’s food had always been carb-based. “We have maida is various food. But luchi is sublime and it doesn’t count,” he laughed.
Sanghvi, who had spent considerable years in Kolkata, could not fathom why would anyone go to McDonalds to have aloo tikki burger when perfect phuchkas were available on road. “Because we have told ourselves they were not hygienic and aspirational,” Pant quipped.
Sanghvi also asked where was Indian food headed to. Pant pointed out that the chefs—many of them more celebrity and less chef—were chasing the mirage of Michelin. His admirations for some of the great chefs notwithstanding, he seemed worried about home cooking drying up, what with people cooking less and less at home and restaurant dishes being flagged off. In fact, Sanghvi said, people went to restaurants for food that used to be prepared at home but no more, as families had mostly stopped cooking .
Sanghvi also wondered why people strived to replicate recipes and food shown on TV as they were all fake—the cream used is usually shaving cream. Pant had a quick reply: “The proof of a pudding is in the eating.”
When someone from the audience asked about molecular cooking, Pant said why would anyone intelligent work with molecules in kitchen and not a lab. A more serious question on dearth of healthy food that was tasty, Pant said, “That’s like asking for a magic wand”.
By: Haimanti Basu