Welcome To The World Of A Bengali-Muslim And The Perks That Come With It! (Calcutta Cuisine - Part I
Growing up, I remember a lot of uneasy introductions of myself to people I would be meeting for the first time. First of all, growing up with an uncommon name is never easy. People make all sorts of assumptions and ask all sorts of weird questions. Oh! “What a lovely name… you must be Christian!”, “Oh! you’re not ?..how adventurous of your parents, it must have been a love marriage”, followed by, “but how can you be a Muslim and Bengali at the same time”? with a look of absolute disbelief lingering in their eyes. The best so far was my hostel matron who looked at my father when I was filling up my admission form in my first year of college, and very sternly told my poor father something that she didn’t think was necessary to point out to “Priya’s” mother or “Anjali’s” father ( all of whom by the way were naturally assumed to be “good” girls) , “ smoking and drinking are strictly forbidden within the hostel premises” ( because she assumed just from reading my name that I am not Indian and completely disregarded the fact that I looked completely Indian ) It was very funny for me to explain to her and clear her confusion (which by the way never completely went away) but you should have seen the scandalized expression on my father’s face, I had a tough time deciding which was funnier.
As it turns out, no one was listening to the history teacher in school during History lessons. Bengal has been ruled by the Rulers of the Delhi sultanate, The Nawabs from Lucknow and the Mughals through out History, hence explaining the high concentration of Muslims in this region. And religion has nothing to do with language, culture or traditions. So us Bengali- Muslims have the pleasure of celebrating eid as well as having a blast on Durga Pujo and that’s one of the many cool things about growing up in Bengal. And I promise you, the best part of this fusion, Is the “FOOD”. Can you imagine having a mother who cooks the most sumptuous biryani and the most heavenly Resala and Laccha Parantha and the most delicious Phirni for dessert and at the same time whip up absolutely mouth-watering “shorshe ilish” and “pabdar jhaal”? Well that’s the story of any kid born to a Bengali – Muslim family. We just have the best of both worlds.
If you’ve grown up in Kolkata, which is my home-town, you will pretty much live the rest of your life judging food every where else, no matter where you go and If you’ve grown up in a Bengali Muslim house-hold , you will live the rest of your life judging BIRYANI every where else in the world. No offence to the much more known Hyderabadi Biryani, but if I wanted “masala rice”, I would order that and not “Biryani”.
When you talk about Kolkata Biryani, you imagine very lightly spiced, long, thin, beautiful grains of rice with a tinge of saffron and lots of fragrant” ittar” and “kewra” (both Mughal spices) all wonderfully blended with the potatoes ,without which we Calcuttans would not even touch the biryani. Trust me, in Bengal, the “Aloo”, (Potato) is the most essential ingredient and yes , we consider it more important than the meat. You might think we’re weird but it’s alright, we can deal with that, but Biryani without Aloo? “Hoodibaba”, that’s like hell breaking loose for us . Although thanks to Ammu Jaan, I have never had to look very far away for some lip smacking Biryani, You can always try good old Arsalan in New Park street and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. And I personally guarantee you will not be able to restrain yourself from saying “Bismillah” after every bite!
Shifting my focus to street food from Kolkata, what can I say? *Sigh*. So every few kilometres you will spot these guys selling stuff that resembles “paani puri” or “ gol gappe”, but hush hush! You must not call it that here. In Bengal “ Puchka” is the word and trust me once this little piece of heaven has entered your mouth, there is going to be a burst of flavours in there and you will close your eyes and try to gather what happened but it’s going to be too late by then and all you can say to the vendor is “ dada, don’t stop, just keep them coming”! ( yeah, call him Dada instead of “bhaiya” and that will win his heart for sure, and don’t forget to ask for extras after you’re done, in Kolkata you’re entitled to seven puchkas if you pay for five by law and it’s your birthright, you don’t have to fight for it, the guy will just hand you two extras, all you need to do is ask. P.S- Aren’t we just an amazing bunch of people?)
At these puchka stalls you can get some other lip-smacking chaat like Aloo-kabuli, ( it gathers it’s name from Kabuli chana which is a main ingredient of this and is essentially a variant of aloo chaat, only tangier and spicier). “Churmur” is another wonderful creation of the Kolkata chaat valahs, and the name of the dish just goes to show hoe “musical” new Bengalis are coz well, we just named an entire dish after what sound it makes when you’re munching on it!
If you’re a huge “bhel-puri” fan, then try the bengali “jhaal-muri”. It’s basically the same as bhel, except it comes with the Bengali swag packed in for half the price you’d be paying anywhere else in India. Oh! Before I forget, that’s another amusing thing about food in Kolkata. When you compare the prices with any other metropolitan city in India, your jaw might drop because well, we can provide you with good quality food which also happens to taste extremely delicious for about half the price that you can get it for anywhere else! (Now you know why your Bengali friend is always complaining about food outside, it’s because they are used to better food at a much lower price, not because they don’t want to spend money on it.) If you look a little in old Calcutta, in areas like Dalhousie, you might still find chai for INR 2 and then you can cut your dad’s sentence short, the next time he opens his mouth to say “humare zamaney mey…”, because in Kolkata we are still pretty much living in the colonial times, and that is one of the many charms of living in this beautiful city.
If you’re bored of reading about food that is of Bengali origin then you’re in for a huge surprise. And that surprise my friend, is what we call China Town or Tangra in kolkata. This area used to host a large number of tanneries belonging to people of “Hakka Chinese origin” but is now more famous all over the world for their “hakka style, chinese food”. The hygiene conditions in this area is not something I could be proud of , but if you can deal with the initial stench in some of the streets and the flies outside, once you enter a restaurant, you will be very happy with your decision once the delicious aroma of fresh chinese food enters your nostrils. I’d recommend Big Boss, Golden Joy or Kim Ling. Take your pick and sit back and enjoy the most sumptuous chinese meal that you have ever had.
Park street does not need any new introductions as it is known to be one of the poshest locations in the city with the best restaurants to grab a bite at. While you must have heard of Peter Cat, Moulin Rouge and Mocambo or read about it some where, there are a lot of other restaurants here that serve delicious food but might not be that famous. Try “Waldorf” for chinese . It’s a cute little restaurant that is one of the oldest there that has an amazing “hilsa festival” in the monsoons where you can clearly see a wonderful fusion of Indian and Chinese cuisines. And the cutest part about this place is a pianist playing old classics while you’re enjoying your meal.
And how can an article about food in Kolkata ever be complete without a mention of the legendary Flury’s confectioners in the heart of park street which has been there since 1927. An evening out with your friends doesn’t always need to be shopping or making preparations for the party later at night. There’s always good old Flury’s to hang out with your friends for tea ( it’s something we still do in Kolkata). The Darjeeling tea they serve is of the finest quality although you should go through their carefully selected range of teas before taking your pick. To accompany the tea this place serves a wide range of traditional british confections both sweet and savoury which is famous all over the city and has been for ages now.
There’s something magical about being in this city. It might be the old world charm it still retains , it might be the slow pace in which this city moves not caring the least bit about how fast the rest of the world is moving. In the midst of all the hustle and bustle you can still feel the city breathing underneath you and most importantly you can still feel yourself breathing amidst all the craziness. What more could you ask for ? I definitely don’t need anymore reasons to love my city because it’s my hometown but when I was asked to write a piece introducing Kolkata to the rest of the world, Food is what came to my mind because nothing connects people more than some good food at the end of the day and in Bengal there’s a common saying that goes around that “people eat to live, but the average Bengali lives to eat”.