Chalo Aao Jamva

Is a Palghat Brahmin who spent the first 18 years of his life in Tamil Nadu, gorging on avial, sambar and koottu, qualified to write about their food? Why not? He did, after all, spend the best two decades of his life (from age 18 to 39) in Gujarat, most of it as a reporter, travelling to all parts of the state and sampling different types of Gujarati food. Home food, PG food, lodge food and restaurant food, and finally, mother-in-law’s food. Yes, reader, I married into a Gujarati family where the lady of the house had magic in her hands and the daughter, despite being a convert to sambar, rasam and thair-sadam with limbu pickle, still managed to produce exquisite Gujarati food. This was real national food integration.

Some basics about the cuisine. Daily lunch is rotli, dal bhaat, shak, athanu (pickle), while dinner is bhakri, shak and a bowl of milk. Some people opt for khichri and milk. At the slightest provocation, this menu is supplemented with farsan (snacks), always deep-fried, and the obligatory mithai. The rotli in Gujarati homes is a work of art, consistently shaped to perfect, thin circles. Women from other regions have tried to emulate this but without much success, leading some to wonder if the process is computerised. The rotli is seldom sukha, rather, it is usually liberally anointed with pure ghee. And don’t be embarrassed if you finish off 15 of them—they are that thin.

There is no dearth of substitutes for rotli if you are looking for a change: there’s thepla, made from a mixture of wheat and bajra flour, and dhebra (made from mixed atta), pothayya (a semi-fried rotli). There is also bhakri, a dry, harder, smaller version of rotli eaten at night. When made from bajra atta and methi, it is called methini bhakri, and tastes great, both as a food and a snack. On a wintry morning, have this bhakri, smeared with butter, in between cups of masala chai. It’s a short cut to heaven.

The Gujarati home is packed with numerous bottles of pickles, some meant to last the whole year, others seasonal. During every meal, half a dozen bottles will be placed before you and you can make your choice—sweet, sour or spicy. Travelling in Saurashtra to cover an election campaign in Gondal, I was served a pickle I had never encountered before, made from tender bamboo shoots, which are available only for about 15 days a year. It was the experience of a lifetime. While Gujarat has its share of pungent chillies, there are others, fat, and not so pungent, that are seasoned with a mixture of mustard seeds, salt, lemon and very little oil. This marcha pickle, eaten after two days, is bliss. During winters, fresh and tender turmeric, cut into small pieces and mixed with lemon and salt, goes wonderfully with rotla.

Fan of Gujarati cooking though I am, I must admit that for a South Indian, there are ‘gender’ problems with Gujarati food! I struggled to distinguish fafda and paapdi,  which are snacks, from valol paapdi and surti paapdi, which are vegetables, the last one used in the Surti speciality, undhiyo, a much-loved mixed vegetable dish. Similarly, handvo is a delicious baked savoury cake, while the similar sounding khandvi is a steamed snack made from besan. Dal-dhokli is a soupy concoction made of dal and flat pasta-like wheat strips, meant to be eaten with rice, while dhokla (not its husband!) is made from besan and buttermilk. To add to the confusion, there is more than one version of dhokla.

Gujaratis are great snackers, especially when it comes to fried food, and they often start early, with a breakfast of chavanu, bajjya, ganthia, chana chor garam, two versions of muthias and patra made from arbi leaves. Most have no love for cereals, toast and butter and similar breakfast foods. Other eternal favourites are mithais and milk-based sweets like dudhpak, basundi and doodh halvo. But, and I must be frank here, barring maghaz (made from besan, ghee and sugar), these are no match for the South Indian jhangiri or Bengali sweets. And dudhini halvo is not a patch on gaajar halwa. But the Gujarati favourite that more than makes up for these deficiencies is the incomparable keri nu ras (mango pulp), eaten during the mango season with either pooris or idada, made from a fermented batter of rice and urad dal.

Festival food had its own attractions. Even on upvas, or fasting days associated with religious festivals, you gorge on special varieties of laddoo and bhakri. And who can forget khichri, the food for all seasons, served with buttermilk? When eaten with kadhi, it soothes both the nerves the stomach, and is the ideal soul food, even a thair-sadam eater must admit.

(V. Gangadhar is a Mumbai-based satirist and columnist.)