From Vada Pav to masalas, a story of food made simple for children

Is the humble Vada Pav of Mumbai – one of the fastest-selling street food, a truly Indian food?

The answer is perhaps a no or a yes!

“We all like Vada Pav....the baking technique of pav is Portuguese, the potato was brought by Portuguese in India...the groundnut oil was introduced by Portuguese and so as chilies... the garlic and onions have come from Central Asia...the rai or mustard seeds, curry leaves and turmeric, namak (salt) are Indian,” says Dr Kurush Dalal, a veteran archaeologist, historian and culinary anthropologist.

Dr Dalal, an orator-par-excellence, along with Mythopia, is now taking the story of food to the kids through an online series ‘Studying Food Workshop For Kids’ from May 24-28.

Dalal will speak about the history of food, farm to table and how it works, the roots of food, the origin of food and future of food.

“While kids are learning mathematics, origami and so on, we thought that the story of Indian food is going to be interesting for kids,” he said.

“Food is something that makes us live and go….right from spending millions of years as hunter-gatherers to foraging food to becoming fishermen and pastoralists, the concept of food is very important,” he said, adding that telling the story of the food to children is going to be interesting.

“We are talking about Indian food. We have to go to the roots of Indian food. We think that all spices are from the Indian sub-continent but actually that is not….majority of the spices have come from elsewhere,” he said.

“Biscuits, toffees, cakes are something that are liked by kids…we are going to tell how it became so popular across the globe,” he said.

Dr Dalal had been conducting a series of ‘Studying Food Workshop’ but now he is taking it to children. "We will be speaking on food culture with an Indian perspective and a global outlook," he said.