In any Indian city or town, it’s hard to miss the roadside stalls on wheels or small shops called Chaat Bhandars. Chaat, meaning ‘to lick’ or ‘taste’ in Hindi, finds its definition in Britannica as a ‘traditional savoury snack sold by street vendors in India that originated in the country’s northern region’. But this origin story is debatable.
Being a student in Kolkata, street food love was second nature in my college days. In moments of wistful nostalgia, the various smells and tastes of greasy, roadside food still make the heart yearn for a plate of a delectable ghugni, aloo dum chaat or even jhalmuri. But Fuchka remains the winner. Also called Gupchhup in some states and even water-filled masala balls for the uninitiated, the pani puri chaat has even made appearances in movies set abroad, representing an essentiality of Indian-ness.
Simple to decipher, it is a crunchy wheat/rava fritter shaped like a ball, filled with a mashed potato/dried peas-based filling topped with tangy, spicy or sweet water. The secret, however, lies in the masalas being used.
The hygiene debate
Indian street food has had a perpetual struggle with the perception of hygiene being far misplaced from it. Rosemary Marandi, who has lived in many Indian cities and hails originally from West Bengal, feels the hygiene debate should not be restricted to street food only. “The only time I fell sick after eating out was from eating Eggs Benedict at an upscale Mumbai eatery. I think chaat lovers take the risk knowing that hygiene is an issue. In fact, the joke is if it is sanitised, it probably will not be tasty.”
The inexpensiveness of a plate of chaat makes it so easily accessible and sought after. Once on the road to Mukteshwar, I recollect a plate of aloo-raita served in the bliss of a late afternoon.
Famished from a long journey, that Garhwali snack plate brought not just relief but a swell of familiarity with a new place through a dish I had never eaten before.
Pocket-friendly
Sundeep Bhatia, food blogger at Delhi Fundos agrees with the popularity factor of chaat being its pocket-friendliness. “Given that chaat is an orchestra of tastes — sweet, tangy, savoury and spicy — its versatile nature appeals to almost everybody! Moreover, chaats don’t burn a hole in one’s pocket which is an important factor for Indians to indulge,” he adds.
On the streets of Varanasi, one would be spoilt for choice of delicious-looking plates of chaat. At the Kashi Chaat Bhandar near the famous Dashaswamedh Ghat, a huge platter of Tamataar ki chaat gets mish-mashed every afternoon as the shop opens for business. The sounds of the iron tava being scraped with every move of the ladle makes no difference to the loud street outside.
In Indore, there is an entire marketplace dedicated to chaats called Sarafa Bazaar, and similar markets and gallis (bylanes) can be found in metros and smaller cities alike be it in Lucknow, Udaipur, Ahmedabad or Vijaywada. There is no discrimination in variety when it comes to street food no matter where one is in India. Inevitably, the stylised snack has travelled globally and become immensely popular in modern cuisine.
The saviour
In his book A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food, food historian KT Achaya refers to vadas and curd existing in Sutra literature and even the Mânasollasa, a 12th-century text that mentions soaking vadas in milk, rice water or curd for taste. Connect the dots and you get dahi vada, a highly popular and loved chaat. Fried lentil balls are soaked in curd and served with tangy and spicy condiments on top.
Another origin story refers to the foundation of chaat in Unani and Ayurveda scriptures. It is said that during the 16th century, Yamuna river’s water became polluted and a terrible outbreak of cholera wreaked havoc in the city of Delhi. As a result, royal Vaids (physicians) suggested mixing the water with spices, tamarind and pastes of herbs such as mint and basil to kill the bacteria. Chaat, hence came to be the saviour of people.
It’s an emotion!
From north to south, chaat has found a magnanimous variety in condiments, toppings and core ingredients over its evolutionary years of existence. For Mumbai-based Ranjani Subramanian, chaat is a representation of fun, colourful food that brings out the child in her. “The chatpata-ness makes India connected whenever I try a new variety somewhere.” NRIs tear up talking about how they miss their chaat. Tapaleena Bhattacharjee has been living in Australia for eight years. She says, “ I crave chaat every day. Thankfully, many Indian restaurants make it easy to get the common chaats such as golgappa, papdi chaat, dahi puri etc., but the regional bests are sometimes not so common or are disappointing, so I make them at home.”
Her go-to home chaats are either aloo tikki or Kolkata-style aloo kabli, a medley of tanginess with boiled potatoes and crisps on top. Chaat is everywhere in India in its own persona. Shamli Nagpurkar reminisces about ‘chaat cone’ from her childhood in the city of Nagpur. “Situated in the oldest market in Itwari, the stall never had a name. We called it chaat cone wala because of what he served in a wheat flour crispy cone almost like an ice cream cone, filled with delicious things like aloo, pyaaz, murmura, spicy chutney, meethi chutney, pomegranates, and baarik sev. You don’t get it anywhere else in a cone like that.”
Ankita Joshi, a Maharashtrian based in Bengaluru sums up the emotion of chaats well. “The unifying part of chaat is the ease of the food and its availability. No matter which way chaat is made, it’s always mouth-watering. It’s tasty, rooted in our local ingredients and offers a lot of space for innovation.”