The Well-Fed Bong

Food, sometimes, is not just about food. Sometimes its about the stories behind food and once in a while the story is as big as the food. Here is one such story. Its just story, no food was harmed in the process… I didn’t know very much about Ambala, but I had the vague idea that it was in Punjab (it's in Haryana) and that it was somehow associated with dhabas (The only time I'd heard of Ambala before was when I went mutton-hunting in Los Angeles and discovered Ambala Dhaba ). Obviously, dreams of mutton again swimming in my head, I went looking on the Internet for famous dhabas in Ambala. So the story starts. It turns out Ambala does indeed have a dhaba that’s famous. The Hindustan Times warned me that the famous one is full of copies – apparently there were over ten of them (even a reference to one in Chandigarh ). This piqued my interest – anything with this much imitation must be worthy of flattery) - so we headed to Ambala. On the GT Road (now all expressway-looking...

I was up in the hills drinking in the scenery, but of course food needed to be on the agenda too. Himachal Pradesh, the land of apples and mushrooms, is a dramatically beautiful state. After a few hours of the flat Punjab plains, twisty roads started spiralling into the heavens pretty much from the instant we crossed the border. Straight-line distances lose their meaning, and the drives (specially if you have a camera) take forever. It seemed only logical that we should be eating Himachali food, but like the aforementioned twisty roads the path to ‘local’ cuisine was anything but straight. The dhabas lining the drive up had proved Himachal to be foodwise quite firmly under the Punjabi thumb (given that it was once part of Punjab, this was hardly unexpected). Enquiries about Himachali food wasn’t met with the most encouraging of responses; one person even told me flatly that there was no such thing – it was all Punjabis anyway. It seemed from where I was standing that Himachalis drank ...

Recently, an article in the New York Times made the somewhat surprising claim that “goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world”. Now I’m the first one to go drooling after some top-class mutton, but given how difficult it is to get the goat on menus around the world, this was a somewhat surprising statistic. I turned to trusty a google search for some answers, but except for the odd dissenting voice on a forum everyone seemed to agree that it was, indeed, the case. I was intrigued but not quite convinced. My diffidence did not prevent me from stating the statistic with great authority to a few more people, but I was met with similar reactions – possible, but a little counter to experience. China is said to account for 70% of the production and consumption of mutton, yet in Chinese restaurants everywhere (even the ones I’d seen in China) had far more chicken, pork and beef than mutton. However, when disagreeing with the New York Times, one had better be sure. Hence in the...

Himachal Pradesh offers stunning views, pretty much from the instant you cross the border at Parwanoo and start your twisty way up into the Shivaliks. Every twist and turn brings new vistas and the temptation to stop and stare, but man does not live by scenery alone. Food, as in much of India, was pretty much everywhere.  HPMC juice stalls and dhabas littered the place, but the odd Chinese or burger joint, or even a bakery sometimes poked its head in. We stopped at a few miles from Parwanoo, picked at random by our driver who wanted a tea. The tea - standard stuff - came with something called fan, which turned out to be a khakra thinking itself a footlong. We stopped at a roadside strip with four stalls. Two juice stores were sandwiched by two dhabas tin a mirror-image arrangement, hanging precariously off the edge of the road. The dhabas boht had the same menu; the HPMC stalls sold juices, wines and pickles of the same kinds. I never cracked the mystery of the mirroring, bu...

A McDonald has finally opened below my office, and it set me thinking about how nothing quite defines the American food experience as much as a hamburger. Indeed, some say that's the only thing American about food.  I grew up thinking burgers to be a snack, but Americans seem to chomp it down for breakfast, lunch, dinner - sometimes all of the above and a few in between. Pizza, taco, fried chicken are all world-dominating American inventions but in sheer sales and in cultural significance all pale in front of the Hamburger. They've have seeped into every inch of American life. Fine dining to backyard barbecues, birthday party to funeral, sports game to board meeting, there is little of culinary significance in America that does not have a burger connection.The key is probably simplicity and versatility and (usually) its cheap, quick, satisfying and portable. The basic burger has exactly two core ingredients - a chopped patty (usually beef, but even potato has been known to w...

Kolkata, I discovered on my last trip, is full of Bengali food. No, I'm not an idiot. Till not so long ago, Bengali wasn't on the menu if you wanted to eat out in Kolkata. Chinese they did, Continental they kind of did, Italian, Punjabi, South Indian all check but Bengali; there you had to be nice to your grandmother or persuade someone to get married (not to you though, the bride and groom don't get to eat anything at a wedding). Bengali snacks and sweets clogged every nook and corner, individual dishes (such as kosha mangsho) was available in places but a full Bengali meal had always been out of reach of the dining-out crowd. For a very long time, Suruchi was the only restaurant serving Bengali food, and that too only at lunch. Aaheli came along a decade and a half ago and remained the sole option for a while; Oh Calcutta finally came to Kolkata too, but much more has changed in the Bengali food scene since. Kolkata, as I discovered on my last trip, is now full of Benga...