BLOGGERS ARE ADDING FRESH FLAVOUR TO INDIA’S STREET FOOD
Manavi Kapur and Nikita Puri find out how bloggers and vloggers are adding fresh flavour to India’s vibrant street-food scene
Iam travelling to Delhi and want to try authentic street food. Any recommendations ?” This question often make san appearance on social media platforms. Usually, such posts are inundated with links to blog sand You Tube videos that indulgently chronicle every little morsel of potato that is fried, every drop of chutney making its way to the ch a at plate and every move of the street vendor’ s hand on the quint es sen ti alt aw a.
The romance of having a plate of ch a at between being jostled for space in the dusty lanes of Ch and ni C how kin Old Delhi is captured in pains taking detail by food bloggers and You Tube rs. A ready-reckoner for those visiting a city or even residents wanting to explore new fl av ours, this has also meant social-media stardom and a loyal customer base for street-foodvendors.
A po he stall in Mumbai’ sB and ra East, whichisrunbyan elderly Ma ha rash tr ian couple, saw its business almost triple after blog posts byKa ly anKa rm ak ar, food blogger and author of The Travelling Belly, was picked up by mainstream media .“I used to often go there for breakfast an db logged about them. Then a local newspaper got in touch with me, took their contacts, and wrote about them ,” saysKarmakar. There was no looking back after that.
Ur va shiY ada v’ s ch hole kulc ha stand in Guru gram is another case in point. An educated, upper middle-income woman, Ya dav began this little business after her husband’ s accident left him unable to work. Whether it washer English-speaking person a or the fact that she wore an apron, bloggers soon began writing about her vend, eventually leading to news reports in mainstream media. “I could not have even imagined sustaining this business had it not been for those who blog ge dab out my stall ,” saysYadav. While the plans to open her own restaurant have been stalled for the moment due to permit issues, her Municipal Corporation of G ur ga on cart has become a landmark in Guru gram.
As far as land marks go, NatrajinChandni Chowk, famous for itsdahibh alla and tik ki, commands a street name of its own. Though every nook and cranny of the bustling market is dot ted with street-food vendors, Nat raj belongs to an era where generation soft he same family take forth a culinary tradition laid down by their great-grand fathers. JitinSharma, the nephew of the current owner, is slow to smile even when he makes jokes about the culture of Ch and ni C ho wk. “How much can bloggers help business if we can’ t keep Ch and ni C how kc lean and safe ?” A crowd gather sand looks on, presumably used to the shop being photographed often. “It always helps to have our name on popular blog sand be featured in videos. There is new client e le in those visiting Delhi ,” saysSharma. Asifoncue, a group of three friends stops outside Nat raj and orders two plates ofdahibh alla. Promptly, three smart phones zip out of their pocket sand each of them struggles to get the light right for Ins tag ram.
Stree t-food vendors notice such trends. Unlike a couple of years ago, when any vendor would be wary of being photographed or stop visitors from making videos—essentiallyfor the fear of being harassed by local authorities— today they welcome the prospect of their food being popular is ed on social media. For instance, the Old Famous J ale bi W alain D ari ba K alan, Old Delhi, has a small Google sticker inside his shop .“We don’ t post anything online. ButI’msure you must have read about us ons ever a lb logs. Did you see the video on You Tube of ourja le bis being made ?” asks the help erin the shop. While they may not adopt newer business models, old-school shops are opening up to and embracing their second hand presence on social media.
“There used to be a time when I would go out to click photographs and street-food vendors would askmetopaythem,” says Priy ada rs hi ni Ch at terjee, aKolkata-basedfoodwriter. “Today, vendorsoftenask me if I will post them online.”
This has changed with vendors becoming aware about their rights under the Street Vendor Act ,2014. Under the Act, states are to appoint Town Vending Committees that would conduct survey soft he number of street vendors and ensure that their livelihood is secured. The vendors are also to be allocated a designated vending zone, which would prevent their harassment at the hands of civic authorities.
“Other states should learn from Bi h ar, which has been able to implement the Act quite effectively ,” explainsWajiha Aziz, programme manager at the National Association of Street Vendors of India. In several countries abroad, street food“is part of the local, everyday culture and not restricted to some novelty value. The perception about Indian street food needs to change before we can reach that level ,” says Chatterjee. Social media, she adds, helps by also giving vendors“some form of recognition when a customer comes to them and says that he or she saw their video online ”.
There is a strange attraction to these videos and those who make them know it. Slow-motion, time-lap se and boomerangs—v loggers know exactly how to use technology to tap into their fan base. Several videos on You Tube chronic ling nothing more than at aw a frying some eggs and buns, for instance, have over 100,000 views.
It is almost as though the growing viewer ship of these quirky videos has transferred the quirk onto street food, too. If a trend begins in one part of town, it swift ly permeates to all street-food hub sin the city, bar ring only the staunchly traditional ones. For instance, tandoori mom os began as an off beat food trend in North Campus in Delhi, and quickly spread to areas such as A mar Colony, Lajp at Nagar, Rohi ni and PunjabiBagh. There is also pride in the number of fl av ours or varieties the vendor sells, especially since it plays up well with b logs looking for click-bait headlines.
“Pane er and corn mas ala, with lots of cheese, please ,” says Is han Mukherjee,a ne-learning content developer in Bengal u ru. It isn’ t a sandwich Mukherjee has requested for, but ad os afro mas tall offering “99 varieties of dos a ”. When he first moved to the city a couple of years ago, Mukherjee stumbled on videos of these stalls all over You Tube; he’s been hooked on cheese on veggie-laden dos as ever since. These dos as, served on plastic sheets laid out on steel plates, make for an easy and satiating meal for those on their way back from work.
The prep work for these motor is ed dos ac arts begins around 5 every evening, with kilograms of capsicum fine ly chopped, followed by tomatoes, mushrooms, boiled cauliflower, spinach, onion sand more, allsaddled beside bowls of different chutneys and a pan brimming with boiled hakka noodles. Made in butter, the menu actually lists 99 combinations of dos a toppings varieties like Chinese dos a and pizza dos a. Some of them have even moved to adding Cad burys as the primary ingredient( chocolate crepes, anyone ?).“I would have eventually found my way to one of these stalls since there are so many of them, but the videos I saw definitely quickened my pace. It looked clean and filling, and let’ s not forget the cheese ,” saysMukherjee.
In one of the column sat The 3 Hungry Men, a food blogging website, the bloggers focus on Thin di Be ed ii nV V Puram, a 300- met re stretch that comes alive with food carts every evening in Ben ga lu ru. These carts offer treats like rasgullachaat, curdko du bale( rice and gram fried rings ),
av areka luakkiro tis( rice flour rot is with hyacinth beans) and dalubbattus (the regional version of Ma ha rash tr ian puranpolis). “The best kayi (coconut) ubbattusareat the end of the Thin di Bee di lane, next tot heb hajji centre ,” comments one of the blog’ s followers, sharing how she packs a few of these crispy fares home for later, well after stuffing herself. The interaction continues, and personal recommendations do always come in handy.
The thrill of finding a hidden gem is also what drives some bloggers and their followers. The growing popularity of food walks belongs to this realm, which is especially true for cities with a melange of cultural heritage.
Mumbai is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Food differs between areas of the city and several localities, such as the Bohri Moh alla, remain unknown even to old timers. While some shops like Taj Ice Cream have been in existence since 1887, it is only now that they are gaining popularity because of food walk sand the subsequent blog sand v logs. Taj Ice Cream now regularly features on several lists of “must-eat” places for Ram zan .“Street food walks help those who don’ t eaton the streets break their mental barriers and tryout street food,” says Karmakar.
Butdosuchb log sand walks make a substantial difference ?“The food cart guy is definitely going to have a crowd on Saturdays, ir respective of whether I put up a post on Friday or not, but I think it definitely helps. The hardest bit about street-food blogging is that you can never be sure of the return on investments ,” says Colin D’ Souza, co-founder of The 3 Hungry Men. His website gets about 5,000 hits daily and his Ins tag ram page has over 10,000 followers.
Would a newer audience, brought in via social media, mean the primary audience starts avoiding these vendors? Would it lead to an increase inf are, and become less aspirational for those on the street? These questions can only be answered when blogging about street food truly becomes a social phenomenon, says Sid K hull ar whose Chef at Large reportedly reaches 20 million foodies.
“I don’ t think blogging has made enough of a difference to street food yet, so we can’ t draw any conclusions as of now ,” he says. However, blogging about street food has attracted the attention of tourists, K hull ar points out .“At the end of the day, any publicity is good for business .” A symbiosis between street-food vendors and bloggers is only a beginning.
‘TODAY, VENDORS OFTEN ASK ME IF I WILL POST THEIR PICTURES ONLINE’