The Gastronomic Gujaratis

Genre: Life

A word of caution: Please do not ask for English transliteration of the words mentioned in italics in the narration below; not because I dont know them, rather because they simply dont exist.

Tell the two words- "Gujarati" and "Food" to anybody and immediately the third word that will come out as reply is "thepla". However those who think Gujarati food starts with thepla and ends with dhokla- think again.

The variety of food found in Gujarat and Gujaratis probably surpasses that found in food all over India combined. A typical Gujarati spends his morning jogging for an hour followed by a feast of jalebi-fafda, eventually consuming twice the calories he burnt while jogging! However if the person happens to be in Surat, the breakfast will invariably be locho- a speciality not to be found anywhere else in India. To a person who can barely distinguish between a khaman and a dhokla, if I tell that a locho is something that can be classifed between the two, he will only end up pulling his (or my) hair! But that's how it is- Gujaratis have made such a huge number of gastronomic inventions that the variety is eventually mind-boggling.

If there is one area which has seen maximum number of innovations by Gujaratis, it has to be Chinese food. Ofcourse all Gujarati Chinese food is pure vegetarian, there is Gobi Manchurian, Chinese Samosa and even Chinese Bhel! Feed any of these dishes to a Chinese guy and he will surely faint. The innovations do not stop here- while everywhere else in India, pani-puri (which is same as golgappa of the North Indians and puchka of the East Indians) is served with a teekha pani and a meetha pani, Ahmedabadis would have none of it. So here we have pani-puri served with a variety of no less than seven different flavours of pani. You name it, we have it! Even the humble vada-pao of Mumbai has not been spared. While the original variety simply has a vada stuffed inside a pao with dry and wet chatni thrown in, the Ahmedabadi vada-pao comes with a pao fried in liberal amount of butter and lasoon chatni and the vada dollopped with tomato ketchup!

There is no doubt about the fact that food brings out the best in Gujaratis- one visit to Law Garden in Ahmedabad or Chowpatti on the banks of the Tapi in Surat or any other khau-galli in Gujarat or Mumbai for that matter will prove this fact. Food unites Gujaratis cutting across age, caste and economic status. So, you will find local farmers sharing space with hip teenagers in their swanky Hondas and Skodas at the traditional bullock-operated sugarcane juice centre near Maroli Sugar Factory on the state highway at an hour's drive from Surat. So famous is this non-descript joint that travellers on the National Highway take a detour to visit it and families from Surat and Valsad specially plan an outing to this place in sugarcane-cultivating season. And the popularity is not unjustified- after all here you get the freshest possible sugarcane juice extracted in the traditional way and served on cots laid under peepal trees in a tranquil field; and at Rs. 2.50 per glass, it's a steal! The same is the case with the bhajia wala at Tithal Beach- once the Gujaratis get attractes to a place, the attraction lasts for generations.

It is this love for food of the Gujaratis that has made even the multinational companies take special interest in keeping them happy. So, on entering a popular mall on the Sarkhej-Gandhinagar Highway, you will come across a huge signboard of McDonalds- written in Gujarati and Domino's and Pizza Hut outlets serving Jain Pizza. It is for same reason that a sleepy town like Valsad which is till date struggling to have one good cinema hall or a shopping complex, already has a US Pizza outlet!

Gujaratis may have been experimenting recently with international cuisine but that has certainly not changed the love for the native dishes. Even today, a visit to Surat is never complete without a dish of Undhiya or nobody who visits Baroda misses to have the Cold Cocoa- an ingenious chocolate based cold drink that originated here and grabbed the attention of the entire nation when Amul started selling it in tetra-packs and cans; however anyone who has tasted the real thing once will swear that this commercial variety does not taste even half as good. The same goes for goti-soda and malai gola- both having their origins in Rajkot.

It is this undying love that distinguishes Gujaratis from everyone else and at the same time unites Gujaratis from all over the world. While others eat to live, the Gujaratis live to eat!