Indians get treated to diversity on a plate

If you needed proof of how loved India’s street food is, you only had to visit ‘Street Food Festival’ held at Constitution Club of India lawns this past weekend. People of all groups, shapes and sizes thronged the three-day festival which offered street food and traditional dishes too from different Indian states.

One found everything from Hyderabad’s famed biryani to Gujarat’s matar samosa and boondi laddoo, Jharkhand’s banana jalebi, Rajasthan’s ghevar and seviyan to Madhya Pradesh’s sabudana khichdi and many other finger-licking dishes, under one roof.

Food lovers too, indiscriminately made their way from one stall to another, in their attempt to taste just about everything. But with the variety that the fest offered (there were more than 40 stalls) this was literally and understandably,
impossible.

Stalls of almost all states witnessed a huge rush as Delhiites queued up, sometimes to taste known street foods like gol gappe and tikki from Pratap Nagar in Delhi to Punjab’s makke ki roti with sarson ka saag and then to have a few unknown dishes like kakra pitha from Odisha, paddu balls from Karnataka and double ka meetha from Hyderabad.

The choice was made more tough because of the reasonable prices that the food was offered at.

The food comprised not snacks but other more substantial dishes as well – including plates of prawns in mustard and pieces of steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf; Bihari thali of mutton cooked in entire bulbs of garlic with rice; Kerala chicken, fish, egg curry and medu vada. 

The visitors enjoyed the food alongwith the vibrant tradition and culture of India with music performances from different states being staged by amateurs - not all of them laudable though! In fact, the ambience of good old mela was completed as people stopped to watch a performance by Khana - so named by a group of students, who staged a nukkad natak to highlight the issue of malnutrition.

If food enthusiasts enjoyed, the participants too had a merry time.

N G Sanjay from Karnataka, whose stall had paddu balls made of rice powder with chutney, tamarind rice and Mysore bonda, said, “The response was very good and whosoever ate these foods really liked it, especially paddu - which is really a gol dosa. You will not get it anywhere except Southern India. I have one vend and a shop in Mysore and there you can find 10 varieties of paddu.”

Kakra pitha and Arisha pitha, traditional Oriya sweets, were liked and enjoyed by many. Lily Kudi, who came from Sundargarh, said, “Arisha pitha and kakra pitha is made in most households in Odisha. It is made from suji and is stuffed with coconut and mishri. We have had many customers who have returned for second helpings.”
 
The festival, which is organised annually by the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) aims at promoting street foods with hygiene and affordable prices in times of growing food insecurity and inflation.

Anuradha Singh, programme manager, NASVI said, “There is a misconception that street foods are unhygienic and not nutritious. All the food vendors are part of NASVI. There are hundreds of street vendors in each state but we select the best ones for the festival. We train them for hygiene and nutrition with the aim of promoting street foods and street vendors.”