“I have often walked down this street before;

But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.

All at once am I several stories high.

Knowing I am on the street where you eat.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Does enchantment pour out of evr’y door?

No, it is just on the street where you eat.”

(With profound apologies to Lerner and Loewe for tinkering with their song from ‘My Fair Lady’)

Street Food. It has to be an absolute essential in the distinctive character of a city. Kolkata is no exception and its street food is an integral part of its distinctive identity. There are the nowhere-else kind of street foods, and there are the local versions of street foods available in other places also. But the Kolkatans swear that versions are the very best.

So, let us walk down the Kolkata Food Streets and some of the most popular foods on offer. For the sake of convenience, we shall restrict ourselves to food available with vendors, carts and roadside-stalls.

JHAL MURI

This has to be perhaps the most popular and iconic street food in Kolkata. Literally, ‘Jhal Muri’ translates into ‘Spicy Puffed Rice’. Simple? Not quite. What complicates the Jhal Muri-affair is the drama of its preparation – in front of your eyes – as puffed rice, chopped onions, green/red chillies, roasted peanuts, cucumber/tomato/boiled potato bit, green coconut are tossed in some raw mustard oil and finished with a squeeze of lemon juice. The result is packed in a newspaper cone and presented to the buyer who appreciatively munches portions popped in the mouth from an open palm. Even though times have changed somewhat, once being a ‘True Kolkatan’ required one to nibble on blades of grass with your lover in the lawns of the Victoria Memorial, followed by sharing a cone of Jhal Muri.

Jhal Muri vendors are everywhere. But, people do have their personal favourites. Each vendor has his own personal list of ingredients and spices. So, even with the same ingredients, the result can be pleasingly different.

If eating Jhal Muri is satisfying, watching it being made is fascinating. An appreciative eater writes: “Fresh and alive, full of flavors and textures and realms of different pleasures. Light on the tummy but nourishing to the core and accessible to all. Beautiful to the eye, the nose and the taste and made individually with much care.  A small piece of personal theater that you eat.”

PHUCHKA

At some obscure point in time, it may or may not have been ‘invented’ in the Magadh region of Bihar, or in Banaras, as ‘Varanasi’ was called then. It has 11 names in various parts of India which include: Golgappa, Pani Puri, Pani Batashe, Phoolki and ..... The Kolkatans believe – with or without sufficient reason – that ‘Phuchka’ as it is known here reigns supreme and is head and shoulders above other versions. To proceed further, let us concede.

Every locality has its own Phuchakawala with his cane stand and a basket full of phuchkas and a pot full of spiced tamarind-water (‘paani’). Each Phuchkawala has his own domain clearly demarcated and his own bunch of hard-core loyalists.  People gather around in a loose circle as the Phuchkawala goes through the preparation of a boiled potato-gram-chutney based spiced ‘stuffing’. Then he picks one puffed-up whole wheat fried sphere, cracks the top with practised ease, puts in the stuffing, dips the sphere to fill it up with the spiced ‘paani’ and serves it in an individual’s leaf-cup. Each individual keeps on smacking his/her lips and keeps on popping the mixture-‘panni’ filled crisp rounds till they think they have had enough for the day.

The phuchka remains one of the most popular street foods in the city. It has been – in recent times – subjected to various kinds of ‘upgradations’ like filling with non-vegetarian mixes and the ‘paani’ being supplemented/substituted with Vodka, Gin or other spirits. But the traditional phuchka still reigns supreme.

Most people swear by their local Phuchkawala, but the vendors at Victoria Memorial, Vardaan Market, Vivekananda Park, Southern Avenue and Russell Street are quite popular with many.

CHURMUR is a variation of the Phuchka, without the wetness and the ‘messiness’. The Phuchka and the other ingredients are crushed together and seasoned with chutney and spices.

TOAST, MAMLET, DEVILLED AND OTHER EGGS

Among culinary traditions which still surprisingly survive in Kolkata is the bread-making by a number of small bakeries. Even if the market is swamped by popular machine-made breads, if one looks for, one can still find excellent ‘traditional’ breads. So, thick slices of these breads, toasted on a charcoal brazier, and slathered with generous amounts of butter, are a popular street snack – available at many places.

If there is Toast, can the eggs be far behind? Boiled eggs must compete with ‘mamlets’ for the top spot. When how and why the Bengalis decided to rename the omelette as ‘mamlet’ is not quite known. But time was – not so very long ago – when Kolkata had a breakfast culture of Chop, Cutlet, Devil, Mamlet. We shall talk about the chops and cutlets later, but let us talk of the ‘Devil’. It refers to the once-popular ‘Dimer Devil Chop’ (Devilled Eggs). Now, if you can find these on the streets of Kolkata, it would be like winning a lottery prize!

Talking of eggs, you have a choice. On offer are the ‘regular’ poultry eggs, desi-murgi (country chicken) eggs and ‘hanser dim’ (Duck Eggs). Take your pick.

GHUGNI

Made with boiled yellow peas with the addition of chopped onions/tomatoes/boiled potatoes, herbs and spices, Ghugni is another street food symbolic of Kolkata and Bengal. Available everywhere in the city, the Ghugni of Dacres Lane and Gariahat area are quite popular.

TELE BHAJA, SINGHARAS, CHOPS, CUTLETS AND MORE

In the rest of the country, these are called ‘Pakodas’. In Bengal and Kolkata, they come under the umbrella of ‘Tele Bhaja’ – ‘Tel’ (oil) ‘Bhaja’ (Fried) – ‘Fried in oil’. Basically these are pieces of vegetables like Egg Plant, Onions, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Cauliflower, Beet Root, Green Chillies and others, dipped in a batter of ‘besan’ (Gram Flour) and deep fried in mustard oil.

There is an interesting divide in the city. Even though Tele Bhaja is ‘anytime food’, generally in North Kolkata, you have plenty of Tele Bhaja options in the morning and throughout the day. While in South Kolkata, these are generally an afternoon-and-after affair.

Rest of India calls the triangular filled and deep fried flour preparations ‘Samosas’. In Bengal, they are called ‘Singharas’. Technically, these too should come under the Tele Bhaja, but they are generally considered a separate category. The most typical Singharas are those with a cauliflower stuffing.

From basic Tele Bhaja made with pieces of vegetables, matters progress to ‘Chops’. In the Kolkata-context, a ‘Chop’ can be a round or oval spiced mashed potato cake filled with other vegetables like beetroot, or with mutton, chicken or fish, crumbed and deep-fried.

Then we come to cutlets which are generally flat, oval patties with minced mutton, fish, prawns or chicken. These too are crumbed and deep fried. A Kolkata-unique are the distinctive Kabiraji Cutlets. Fish Frys and Fish Fingers are also quite popular.

Every locality has its own favored Tele Bhaja outlet. Some of the most famous Tele Bhaja places in the city would include:  Mukhoruchi on GLT Road, Narendrar Dokan on Harish Chatterjee Street, Lakshmi Narayan Shaw and Sons on Bidhan Sarani and Kashiramer Tel Bhaja on Beadon Street.

CHINESE BREAKFAST IN TERETTI BAZAR

In the Poddar Court area next to Teretti Bazar in central Kolkata, there used to be a Chinese lady with a shiny gold tooth. On the pavement, she presided over a huge pot of rich simmering stock and would serve delicious hot fishball/meatball soup. She had a sprightly young local teenaged girl helping with the service. The soup was simply superb and would generally finish by 9 am. The Chinese lady went away and the girl – now a woman – took over. She still presides over the Soup Affair and has maintained the quality of soup over the years.

This soup was the center-piece of a varied early morning breakfast which included a number of vendors selling savouries and various kinds of steaming hot dumplings. Most of it all has gone. What remains is the soup and one-odd Chinese couple selling dumplings and Baos.

Still worth a visit.

WRAP ‘N ROLL

We have purposely not talked about the Kolkata-Unique Nizam/Kati Rolls. This is because this iconic food deserves a story by itself. We shall talk about them – soon.

MUCH, MUCH MORE

So far we have talked about some typically-Kolkata Street Food. To all this we can add foods like Fruit Kulfis, various kinds of Chaat including Pav Bhaji, Alu Tikis, Kachoris, Luchi-Alu Dum and a wide variety of typical Bengali Sweets. The Kolkata Street Food Menu has rapidly expanded over the years. Now, it is possible to have full Bengali Vegetarian/ Non-Vegetarian Meals, Chinese Noodle?’Fried Rice/Other dishes, Biryanis, Kebabs, South Indian fare like Idli/Dosas and much, much more. It is all there on the Streets of Kolkata.

As its name implies, Street Food is available all over. But among the important Street Food areas in the city would be: Dacres Lane, Dalhousie Area, Burra Bazar, Camac Street, Lord Sinha Road, Vardaan Market, Victoria Memorial, Gariahat Area, Vivekananda Park, Rabindra Sarovar Lake Area, Salt Lake Swimming Pool Area.

Be brave, step out and sample the Culinary Enchantment available on the Streets Where We Eat in Kolkata.

“I have often walked down this street before;

But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.

All at once am I several stories high.

Knowing I am on the street where you e