From Puchkas To Parathas And Keema To Kebabs: Food Aplenty On Kolkata’s Streets

Kolkata's streets may be potholed, congested and chaotic, but most of them are lined with what even gourmets would swear are gastronomic delights. And the sheer variety of food that is available on the city's streets is mind-boggling in itself. No wonder, then, that a global survey carried out by a reputable travel portal named Kolkata as the best street food destination in the country.

While an exact count is impossible, it is estimated that more than 1200 varieties of dishes ranging from Mughlai, Bengali, South India, Gujarati, North Indian, Chinese, Southeast Asian and even continental are sold by the approximately 90,000-odd street food vendors in Kolkata. And what is more, no one has ever had even a minor stomach upset after consuming street food in Kolkata, a fact corroborated by a study undertaken by the All India Institute Of Hygiene & Public Health a few years ago, which found all samples collected from roadside food vendors safe for consumption.

The highest-selling street food in Kolkata, and no marks for guessing, is undoubtedly the phuchka, or the paani puri as North Indians call it. And there are many variations to it now; roadside stalls in south Kolkata even offer ones with mutton and chicken keema filling. The sight of men and women cutting across all age groups and income levels stuffing puchkas into their mouths and often competing among themselves to gulp down the largest number of them is ubiquitous on Kolkata's roads.

Another iconic Kolkata street food is the kathi roll, which is said to have originated in the early 20th century (read this) when one Englishman on a horse stopped by at Nizam's, an equally iconic Kolkata eatery that was once famous for its kebabs and biryani, for a quick snack. Knowing that the saheb would not want anything messy, the chef quickly rolled some kebabs in a paratha and wrapped it in a paper napkin. The rest, as they say, is history. According to Kolkata's food bloggers, an estimated 1.2 lakh kathi rolls, and 2 lakh puchkas, are consumed in the city every day. And that, by the way, is a conservative estimate.

But it is not just about puchkas and kathi rolls, the latter so called because unwieldy iron skewers were replaced by cane and bamboo sticks (called kathis in Bengali) for making the kebabs that go into the paratha wraps. The largest concentration of street food vendors in Kolkata is in the Dalhousie-Esplanade area, the city's central business district. That's because of the large number of middle and lower middle class office-goers, and visitors on work, who throng to the area that is a busy hub of government offices, banks, corporate offices and big and small trading establishments, This is also where the widest variety of street food is available ranging from stews and soups, roast chicken, biryani and idli-dosa to maach-bhaat (the Bengali rice and fish curry), chowmein, Thai green fish curry, rasagollas and pastries. Not to forget the momos, bhel puris and even caramel custards!

But the pice hotels could not keep up with the rush and with the huge influx of Hindu migrants fleeing persecution from erstwhile East Pakistan, unemployment swelled. Many of these migrants set up roadside food stalls to cater to the demand of the lakhs who commute to the city daily. Another factor that made the roadside or pavement eateries popular is the famed culinary skills of the people of 'opar' Bangla (the 'other' Bengal, or East Bengal, which became East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh); the debate over the comparative skills of 'Bangals' (Bengalis from East Bengal) and 'Ghotis' (from West Bengal) has long been decided in favour of the former. Add to this the food-loving characteristic of the Bengali, and thus, says writer Buddhadeb Bose, Kolkata's street food is so varied and tasty.

Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, a foodie himself, says that the popularity of Kolkata's street food stems from the fact that it is cheap (a chicken egg roll, for instance, costs an average of Rs 25, less than half the price of the same roll in Delhi), healthy and tasty. ''Street food vendors don't have refrigerators and so there is no question of them serving stale food. They have limited inventories that last them for just the day. We conduct regular checks and test food samples we collect from such vendors from all over the city. I am proud to say that not a single food sample has been found unfit for human consumption and not one vendor has been found to use prohibited colours or additives,'' said Chatterjee.

Nalin Shrivastava, a top executive of ITC, often joins some of his junior colleagues for a quick snack at Russell Street (where the ITC headquarter is located) off Kolkata's famous Park Street. ''When I first came to the city, I baulked at the idea of eating at a roadside food stall. But once I got over my inhibitions, I found the food to be tasty. It is quite an adventure eating at a roadside stall in Kolkata. And the sheer variety of it is amazing,'' he says. Srivastava recently took two friends visiting from New York on a culinary tour of Kolkata. ''We went to three famous speciality restaurants and about 10 roadside food vendors. My friends voted for the roadside food and I couldn't agree with them more,'' said the 40-something Srivastava, an IIM-Ahmedabad graduate who worked in the USA and UK before coming to India.

Most Kolkatans, highly opinionated as they are, have specific preferences as far as street food is concerned and swear by them. Indrajit Lahiri, a famous food blogger, says that the butter toast and vegetable stew at Dacre's Lane is the best while Sunita Mukherjee argues that the puchkawallas in Bhowanipore serve the most mouth-watering variety. While most government babus would swear by the kathi rolls of Dalhousie, others say one particular stall on Park Street serves the best of the lot. Many even argue over which roadside eatery serves the best idli - don't all idlis taste the same? - in the city.

Like politics and football - the two other popular topics of Bengalis - this debate over street food is also an eternal one - one that can arouse passions, because, to the Bengali, food is not something that can be trifled with.