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| Cheese chilli toast memories |
It has poured in Mumbai all day and the skies have finally quietened down. It’s a bit past 5 pm now though this story is from our breakfast which we had at noon.
The rains started last evening and and we have experienced some pretty long and heavy spells since then. We are home and snug thankfully. Enjoying the rains. Many are not and one is seeing pictures of waterlogged streets on Twitter and can only hope and pray for the best. The boys are fine. I think Baby Loaf went below the bed after I fed him breakfast. Little Nimki slept on the bed beside me while I was at my desk, I rocked him like a baby at one point and he kept trying to enter the kitchen when I was in to see what I was doing. They woke up K a number of times at night I am told and she dished out food for them each time.
I woke up with a stiff back. Was tempted to call in for chicken sandwiches from Candies but they do not take online payments and COD seemed a tricky idea in the rains, so I let that be. I thought of making fried eggs and then I changed my mind. My plan was to have khichuri with an omelette later and did not want to OD on eggs.
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| My khichuri with omelette dreams came to life when our cook, Banu, came to work. I have taught her how to make khichuri. My mom in law taught her to make poro. The Parsi omelette. The Bombil tarapori patio is by Zinobia Schroff |
I opened the fridge, took out the remaining 1/4th of a green capsicum that was inside and finely chopped it. I had earlier taken out the Baker’s Dozen multigrain wholewheat bread, that we bought last weekend and had kept in the deep fridge, and thawed it.
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| Street to home. We had not heard of multigrain bread in the early 2000s. Nor did we know the difference between whole wheat and ‘brown’ |
I got a tub of green chutney (grated coriander, chilli, coconut, salt, lime juice, garlic and mint in some cases) out from the fridge. The one that the folks at Ghosht Stories, the about to open mutton focused cloud kitchen, had sent with the shammi kebabs in a food sampler a few nights back. Smeared that on slices of bread. Added the finely chopped capsicum on these, a smattering of finely chopped green chillies and little pieces of Britannia cheese. Covered each slice with another slice of bread and put the sandwiches into the griller. One with two slices for me and one with a single slice for K. I had greased the griller with Amul butter.
Once they were ready, I took the sandwiches out and tried to cut them into neat bite sized cubes. Smeared a bit of green chutney and tomato ketchup on mine. Not on K’s.
I was inspired of course by the famous toast sandwiches of the streets of Mumbai. I had my first outside Eros in ’96 or ’97 when I had come to Mumbai from Kolkata to distribute placement brochures from my MBA institute to corporates here. I have remained a fan since. I prefer the veg toast to the masala toast. The former has slices of boiled potato along with slices of cucumber, onion, tomato and beet. The latter a masala dosa like potato mash.
What I made for breakfast today was the cheese chilli alu toast sandwich (sans the boiled potato) that K had introduced me to when we were at FCB Ulka Advtg, where we had first met. The office was at Nirmal Building at Nariman Point then and we would try to coordinate and take the same train (different compartments as she would take the ladies) to come to work from our homes when we began seeing each other. We would take a share a cab from Churchgate Station. Get off at the sandwichwala’s opposite Nirmal and place our order and go up to office. “At 10:30 am,” she reminded me today with a smile. We would settle at our respective desks. Me in account planning. K in the creative section.
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| My salute to the sandwich-wala of NP and to the street food stars of Mumbai and India |
We got married eventually and moved on in our careers to other office spaces but our Nariman Point days remain special. Here’s a fun fact, Haresh Moorjani who is the father of Kabir Moorjani, one of the folks behind Ghosht Stories, was K’s boss back then as the creative head of Ulka.
During subsequent trips to Nariman Point in the mid 2000s I saw that all the street food hawkers who sat opposite Nirmal – Rajesh Juice Wala who was famous for his strawberry milkshake in winter and mango in summer and grape juice all year round (with lots of glucose powder) and whom my later father in law patronised earlier in his Central Bank Days, the pav bhaaji guy who would make pav bhaaji fresh on order and to whom I would go regularly (Rs 12 a plate in 2000), the dosa guy whom some of our colleagues loved especially for the Mysore dosa with red masala and beet root with extra butter, the bhel wala to whom K and I would go at 4.30 pm for a snack (sev puri for me and bhel puri for K) – were all gone. The authorities had cleaned up what to me was the soul of Nariman Point.
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| Tribute to the street food of Odisha sent by Mumbai based home chef, Sneha Senapati |
Many of the street food vendors across the country would have been affected by the pandemic and the lockdown. Some might have come back. Most have disappeared for now into the nameless rabbit holes that they had come from. Many were migrants. In most cases we knew them by what they sold … phuchkawala, bhelwala, dosawala, sandwichwala, roll-aala, jhaal muri aala…rarely by their names.
There have been many posts on social media expressing hopes that they will come back soon. Anchored around memories of the great food on offer. Written by us foodies. Yes, there are restaurants and home chefs offering street food inspired dishes while we stay locked down at home but there is a sense of adventure while eating on the streets that this can never replace.
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| Quoted on pani puri in an article by Charukesi Ramadurai, my former colleague in market research, in BBC Travel |
The truth is that the world of street food is all about hard commerce first and then the ‘romance of food’. There are families that run on it and so many livelihoods would have been affected by their closure. Not just from the seller’s side. Street food is as much about quelling hunger in an affordable manner as it is about the joy of eating. Not for you and me and other such keyboard warriors perhaps, as much as it for the man on the street, working hard to earn their living.
Street food keeps their dream fuelled in a manner that no mall food court or cafe can.
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| Sampler sent by Social Restaurants of their street food menu featuring dishes from different parts of Mumbai. Spicy, big hearted fare typical of the streets and of which we enjoyed the pav bhaaji, the misal and the mutton pav. The bhaajias would have been crisper if eaten when freshly fried I suppose. A nice way of keeping our spirits up when in custody at home. |
Street food vendors are an integral part of the socio-economic fabric of our country and we can only pray for their safety and well-being and wish that they will be able to return soon, operating in a more hygienic manner than ever before.
Giving us joy and filling us with hope like they always have. And phenomenal food!
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| Was thrilled to get this insta DM today. I realised that I have been manically creating content from the start of the lockdown. Sharing everything from my life with you on my SM channels. At times I wonder if this is worth anything. Then I got my answer. Thank you!. |
Update: It began to rain again in the evening so I went and did a #foodocracyindia live podcast on this. You can watch it here.
From the #HouseOfCats
Soundtrack in the #FinelyChoppedKitchen today
Got Alexa to play ‘riders on the storm’ by the Doors while I made breakfast. Took me back to an evening in Kolkata in the mid 1990s when I first heard the song. I was home that evening. The curtains were drawn shut. I heart the opening of the song and thought it was actually raining outside. Used it as a track for a power point presentation that I made in Esomar 2007.
Also read:
- Revisiting Nariman Point food memories
- On learning how to boiled noodles right from the thelawalas of Nariman Point
