Signature Foods
TweetProlog
I started my career in Mumbai in what seems like eons back. The city will always be seared in my memory for teaching the basic tenet of being a professional – being dependable. Mumbaikars will go to office in such pouring rain, that in any other city would be considered an emergency flood situation. But that is not why I remember Mumbai fondly.
Signature Foods
During one particularly lazy weekend, one of my friends told me that i have to go eat Bhel Puri at Vithal’s Bhel Puri shop near VT – considered to be foundational to the chat phenomenon that has taken over the country. Then the list extended slowly over time to Sardar Pav Bhaji, Haji Ali Juice Center, Karjat Vada Pav, Parsi Dairy Kulfi and so on..
Ever since, i have been on a quest to discover the “Signature Food” of every city of the world i visit. Once i went to Madurai (in Tamilnadu) and discovered Raja Barley’s Macroons – they have been making that stuff for 100 years now per the shop keeper. I was surprised to later find that many of my relatives who hail from Madurai had never heard of Raja Barley!
When we were in New Jersey, myself and my wife Priya Raju used to hunt down the signature foods whenever we could – H&R Bagels’ signature bagels, Lombardi’s Pizza…
What started this particular Signature Food trip down memory lane, was my recent visit to Pune where i made sure i brought a huge package of Chitale’s Bakarwadi. I also had a chance recently to visit Hyderabad and got the famous Karachi Biscuits for my family. Yummy stuff.
Googling
As is customary, i did some research to see if someone has talked about Signature Foods in detail. I found this excellent quiz on Signature Foods of various American Cities. I also chanced upon this nice article on the qualities of a Signature Food. On the whole, it appears, from the somewhat sparse Google results compared to other popular topics, Signature Foods aren’t top of the mind for people.
“Social” Signature Foods
As a passionate Social media advocate, i was thinking about how Social Media could make the quest for Signature Foods easier. Maybe one of the hot location startups like Foursquare, could introduce a new “Signature Food” feature, which will notify you of the city’s signature food(s) as soon as you check-in to any location in that city. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Epilog
What are your thoughts? What are your favorite signature foods? Which cities are those from? Please chime in.
Senthil,
Thanks. I’m sure some of these will die because such businesses never figure out how to transfer their knowledge to the next generation. I know several signature foods, native medicines, grandma recipes die out because we in India are unable to figure this out. this is happening not because of cultural imports from other countries (it maybe a factor) but our inability to scale a business or an idea.
Talking of bombay I forgot to mention chill flavored icecream near Wankhede stadium…..
Thanks Karthik. Chilly flavored ice-cream sure sounds interesting. Haven’t tried it.
Sorry to join the party late (pun intended), but in US, I can think of New York Delis and their eggplant dishes and their cheese cake, Chicago deep dish pizza, Texas style barbecue, New Orleans Jambalaya (and Bubba Gump Shrimp), New England Clam Chowder, Maine Lobster, and California crabs.
Thanks Ganesh. Yes those are signature foods indeed.
Thanks for this sukumar. You should also share any signature foods in chennai! 🙂
On the social media front, I read reviews and check out restaurants in the city on burrp.com, I think that would be the ideal place to mark a restaurant/eatery as a signature eatery automatically if it gets upvoted by say a minimum of n-people in the burrp community or something like that.
P.S: Have been ignoring google reader for quite sometime now. I am glad I got back to it soon. Lots of comments, looks like everybody has an opinion when it comes to food! Now to collate/aggregate and note it down for the future.
Sukumar:
Visiting your blog after a very long time and realized that I have plenty of catch up reading to do.
Here are a couple of contributions from my native state of Kerala.
1) Ramaserri Idly – Ramaserry is a village in Palakkad near the Tamil Nadu border and the idly from this place is very tasty. The peculiarity is that the idly is steamed in clay pots. More details can be found in the following link that I got from Google.
http://www.peppertrail.com/php/displayContent.php3?link_id=191
2) Ambalapuzha Pal Payasam – You have to drink it to explain the taste difference. This is available after 12 Noon everyday in Krishna Temple at Ambalapuzha a small town in Alleppey district. There is a local legend about this pal payasam. Once there was a king who was a chess enthusiast and ended up playing against Krishna who came in front of him as a saint. The king who was overconfident of winning the game asked the saint about his bet in the event the king loses the game. The bet put forth by the saint was very simple. Just one grain of rice in the first square of the chess board and doubling it in geometric progression for each of the remaining squares. The king grossly underestimated the quantity of rice which is 2^64 – 1 (2 to the power 64 – 1) grains of rice and ended up losing the game to the saint. So the pal payasam is made as an offering in the temple on behalf of the king as a part of paying his debt to the saint.
I am sure many other Signature foods may have such interesting stories behind it. Thank you for this wonderful post and enjoy all those yummy foods!
We are preparing to put up the world’s biggest food festival called “Annabrahma” in Ahmedabad next year. It will comprise of all the signature dishes of India – from across the length and breadth of the country. So do, come and enjoy three days of feasting. Will publish more details when I have them.
/** I’m sure some of these will die because such businesses never figure out how to transfer their knowledge to the next generation. I know several signature foods, native medicines, grandma recipes die out because we in India are unable to figure this out
**/
These knowledge transform from father to son for all these thousands of years.. but after education system was introduced, this transfer of knowledge was cut down.. Rajaji tried to preserve these knowledge by bringing kula kalvi as part of school activity.. But people with ideological blindness thwarted his attempt.. Neither these knowledge was brought to educational syllabus.. as a result, numerous simple sidha medications was gradually lost in front of my own eyes.. Many musical arts that were once part of temple activity was lost..
The primary duty of every nation is to protect these native knowledge from market invasion.. in india, we failed as a nation to protect these.. in the coming future, there would be nothing indian, except for market and money..
Excellent post Sukumar.
From my hometown Nellore, one cannot but accept “puli bongaram with Kaaram Chutney”. It is a roadside fare with awesome taste. And the same note, Karam Dosa near Radha Cinema Hall (they say that when IT folks raided the guys house, they got 1 crore worth of unaccounted income – now you can imagine how much demand he has), Rajasthan Lassi in Trunk Road, Komala Vilas meals (unlimited of course).
At Ananatapur where I studied, Uggani Dosa on Subash Road near Pathuru and Uggani with Cut Mirchi Bajji (Recipe here http://bit.ly/bc9dzn)
And at Hyderabad – nobody should miss Biriyani with Mirchi-ka-Salan or Bagara Baingan. I would go nowhere but to Paradise Restaurant (address- of course, Paradise Circle).
Chennai – I remember Srini Mangadu (my ex-manager a decade back) and I exploring different restaurants in Singara Chennai for signature foods and many are already covered above. Both were food lovers and both used to work for half day on Saturdays as a rule.
Senthil – is there a way to preserve our heritage and culture, without keeping it a family vocation. I see many family run businesses around – still flourishing, if they are financially viable. But certain vocations, if the kids learn only that, will be starving for the rest of their lives. And the reason – nothing to do with the profession. With the modern inventions, cannot simply sustain the market. (and certain vocations are outright exploitation. I dont think it will be of great cultural thing to clean others excretions/ burn corpses..however glamorous it might be for few people and however much native knowledge it might have)
Mouth watering post Sukumar. It remided me of my favorite signature food, the Mirchi Bajji from Hyderabad. It is one of a kind and absolutely delicious.
@vamsi
/**Senthil – is there a way to preserve our heritage and culture, without keeping it a family vocation. I see many family run businesses around – still flourishing, if they are financially viable. But certain vocations, if the kids learn only that, will be starving for the rest of their lives. And the reason – nothing to do with the profession. With the modern inventions, cannot simply sustain the market.
**/
It will be a heritage, only as long as it remains a family business. Else, it will be just any other business.
Btw why there is so much opposition to anything family oriented?
Family run business are always financially viable, because, the family members do not work for salary, but have a common stake in it. So they persist in it, whether its profit or loss.
The problem here is NOT with family profession.. but extreme apathy, and hostility towards unorganised family businesses, by government.
The IT industry today thrives, because of heavy government support, in terms of tax concession, infrastructure support, legal support, and administrative support. Few years before, when dollar rate dropped to 39 rupees, Nasscom lobbied the government and the dollar was artificially hyped up.
Why we did not advocate the free market at that time? When it comes to our own survival, we need government to step in.
Can you please point out any single step or policy that this indian government right from independance had taken to support local industries?
When big IT companies itself could not survive without government support, how can those local industries?
Senthil
I am not against family businesses. Some family businesses thrive and some cannot as they have no natural relevance in modern times. Upward mobility is something every human being will look for. If a given field does not provide an opportunity, we cannot expect them to stick to that field. Government is not an answer. My understanding is that Rupee is free floating currency and it’s value is not a pegged value against USD or BP.
I think it is to do with the very fact that the family run businesses which need lot of skill needs a great amount of practice. In olden days with village centric economy, it was perhaps sustainable (rather there may be no other alternatives – lack of transportation, communication, exposure etc). Now with modern times, it is pretty hard.
Leave that, and think of a doctor, a supposed to be lucrative career and skilled profession. Do you know the starting salary of an MBBS doctor if he were to be practicing private without any family backing/ father’s practice? I personally know some MBBS doctors jealous of their school friends in IT because it helps them settle fast. Of course by the time they come to retirement age, there will be huge difference.
Also think of Ayurvedic Medicine – a Kerala doctor versus an AP doctor. Kerala Ayurvedic doctors became a brand name and commercialized, entered into tourism space as an add on service. But AP Ayurvedic doctors could not. In both cases Govt is not directly in picture.
Anyway, I think, as usual, we are quite off topic. Let us keep this thread to delicious part of the equation.
@vamsi
When these professions had sustained for thousands of years, why all of sudden, it becomes unsustainable in past few decades?