In my childhood, I always wondered why the chole that we made at home was called ‘Pindi chole’ in restaurants. It was the usual, smaller-sized Kabuli chana in a spice mix that was very similar to the ones that we made at home, but embellished with extra garnishes.
Then, there would be the ‘Hakka’ noodles and manchurian that’s a perennial favourite at Chinese restaurants. Biryani has its own factions with Hyderabadi and Kolkata among the most popular ones. Fans of paneer bhurji will tell you how the Amritsari variant is their favourite, while Chettinad chicken is a widely celebrated dish among meat-eaters.
Among continental fare, Chicken Kiev and ‘French’ fries have often raised the question — are these items really from what their names suggest? Come to think of it, even Kabuli chana refers to the highlands of Afghanistan. I couldn’t help but wonder—is there a sense of glorious global unity that runs the world of culinary arts as we know it today?
When a food is named after a city, country or person, you’d think this would indicate that the dish was either connected to or concocted in that place. But, the reality of it is often different. It is fascinating how food makes people feel, and how easily it becomes more than a mere recipe.
Once a name catches on, it’s almost impossible to separate it from the dish. For instance, the Pindi chole, much loved across the Punjabi cuisine, denotes the ‘Pindi’ to Rawalpindi — now in East Punjab, Pakistan. For the diaspora that was displaced from across either end of the border during the Partition of India, this dish is simply chole. As restaurants evolved in India, the staple fare received its prefix of the city where its cooking style originated from.
Similarly, the Hakka noodles is actually a hat tip to the Hakka community who settled in India almost two centuries ago in Kolkata’s Tangra region. The dish manchurian was invented by Nelson Wang in Mumbai’s Cricket Club of India (CCI). He was born in Kolkata to Chinese immigrant parents, and during his stint in CCI, he realised that he had to adapt his Chinese culinary skills to suit the Indian palate.
In the process, he combined Chinese cooking techniques with Indian spices and ingredients, such as cumin, coriander and green chillies. Upon inception, the dish comprised bite-sized pieces of chicken that were first marinated in a mixture of spices and corn flour, and then deep-fried until crispy. This fried chicken was then sautéed with garlic, ginger, green onions and a spicy, tomato-based sauce.
The result was a flavourful, spicy dish with a crispy texture that quickly became a hit. The dish is an ode to the region of Manchuria in China. At Carnatic Cafe in Delhi, there’s a dosa that has customers lining up right from its opening hours—the Malleshwaram 18th Cross. It is an ode to the street where the restaurant’s owner, Pawan Jambagi, lives in Bengaluru today.
On the other spectrum of the geographic nuances in food is the debate between Hyderabadi and Kolkata biryani. Both, to be sure, boast equal factions of loyalists. While the Kolkata biryani is more fragrant and dry with pieces of meat, a flavourful potato and egg, the Hyderabadi biryani is a more layered and spicy preparation with a spicy salan — a version that many deem to be more ‘regal’. Either way, there’s no denying that the two variants have given biryani a global stage.
It is important to note that the eating patterns of any group assert its collective identity and facilitate the process of socialisation, or the transmission of culture. The history of every cuisine narrates with equal gusto the story of a prevailing appetite, and its adjoining habits and tastes.
The use of place-related names in the culinary industry exhibits a strong desire to not just replicate dishes that might have been typical to the region, but evoke nostalgia for people’s roots. In turn, they echo the smells and voices of a lost homeland, and a wish to sustain and transmit memories of that taste to future generations.
Vernika Awal is a food writer who is known for her research-based articles through her blog ‘Delectable Reveries’