'India's favourite snack': from Bollywood stars to mythical queens, IMF economists and fine-dining chefs, everyone likes to gobble golgappas
When the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, Indian-American Gita Gopinath, welcomed the new year she did so with a snack widely loved in India - golgappas.
Gopinath, 50, shared a photo of herself tucking into the spicy-tangy dish, also known as pani puri or puchka, with a caption wishing her followers a "Happy 2022".
Within minutes, the post had gone viral with thousands of people sharing and retweeting it. Some took the opportunity to tell the economist about the staggering variety of golgappa dishes available across India, while one cheeky tweeter asked Gopinath if she could guess the price of 20 golgappas after 20 years based on the current rate of inflation.
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Golgappas are hollow, puffed up crispy dough balls filled with boiled potatoes, tamarind/mint water, coriander chutney, chickpeas, yogurt sauce, finely chopped onions and a whole lot of spices.
"Gol" refers to the snack's round shape while "gappa" denotes the eating process - to be gobbled up in one bite, that is.
Different Indian states take pride in their own signature versions with varied monikers. In Haryana the dish is called "paani patashi"; in Madhya Pradesh "fulki"; in Uttar Pradesh "pani ke batashe" or "padake"; in Assam "phuska" or "puska"; "gup-chup" in parts of Odisha and "phuchka" in Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and Chhattisgarh. The snack is also popular in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Despite a few common ingredients - such as tamarind juice, potatoes and spicy water - the regional variations are made in different ways. Phulka, the version found in West Bengal, is more tangy than sweet and the filling consists only of mashed potatoes and boiled chickpeas. While in Bihar, the shell is crafted from wheat flour, Delhi's chefs stick to sooji, a coarser grain.
"Golgappas easily qualify as India's favourite street food," said street vendor Ram Prakash, 56, who has been selling chaat (an omnibus term for street food) for 20 years in Old Delhi. "Even though I offer a variety of snacks, my main source of income is from golgappas. Me and my wife get up at four every morning to make about 1,000 daily and it has been the source of our livelihood for three generations."
According to mythology, golgappas were invented by Queen Draupadi of the wealthy Magadha province in Central India in the fourth century BC. When newly married to the five Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Draupadi was challenged by her mother-in law Kunti to invent a dish from leftovers. The clever queen came up with the iconic and mouthwatering golgappas, earning applause from all her husbands. Impressed with her daughter-in-law's ingenuity, Kunti blessed the dish with immortality.
Delhi, being India's culinary capital, is peppered with chaat shops offering an array pf golgappas. Some five star hotels also have them on their menus. "While chaat-papdi [crispy flour discs], crispy pakoras [fritters] and spicy aloo-tikki [potato cutlets] never fail to make me salivate, it is the golgappas that have my heart. The spicy dish scalds your tongue and might leave you teary eyed even but it ticks all boxes of taste and texture," said Mumbai-based lawyer Pratik Gohil who eats them every weekend.
Gohil, 40, added that the pandemic had been tough on him as most street vendors had stopped operations which deprived him of his favourite snack. "I then came up with a plan. I told my wife that I would do all the household chores - including washing dishes, clothes as well as sweeping and mopping - the day she made golgappas for me at home. Fortunately, she agreed."
Inventive chefs have put their own spin on the traditional snack by filling them with Scotch or wine instead of spicy water. Pani puri tequila shots are all the rage among millennials and spice-phobic foreigners.
Indian restaurant chain Punjabi by Nature says the snack - which they offer in a dozen varieties - has been their top seller for over two decades. "We offer a range of non-alcoholic as well as alcoholic golgappas. The latter are spiked with vodka infused with various herbs and condiments that are first dry roasted and hand pounded. They are then left to infuse the liquor for 36 hours. We offer two alcohol-based golgappas with 30ml of vodka for 250 rupees (US$3.35) while a tray of eight with three shots comes for 600 rupees."
Golgappas have a strong following among Bollywood actors too, with Amitabh Bachchan, Shahid Kapur, Akshay Kumar and Shraddha Kapoor counting themselves as fans. Priyanka Chopra has taken her love for the snack to the next level by putting them on the menu at her newly launched fine dining Indian cuisine restaurant Sona in New York.
The 38-year-old star's eatery offers golgappas filled with avocado and spiced tequila.
Said Sona's chef Hari Nayak in a recent interview: "If it wasn't for Priyanka, I'd never have added golgappas to the menu. We have a clientele that is almost 90 per cent non-desi ... We need to teach them how to eat it. Everybody orders golgappas before the meal now. That's how they get the party started!"
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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