Snacks with Michael Graham

Appears in

Published 1990

About

Indians are compulsive nibblers. They constantly need a ‘fix’ of snacks to satisfy their ‘habit’. It is not unusual to eat one full meal and gobble snacks for the rest of the day. Until a few years ago, it was considered ‘unhealthy’ to eat out. An exception was made in the case of snacks. Little wonder, then, that this nation boasts of an astonishing range of minor delicacies.

Unlike in the West, where it is customary to offer tea, coffee or a drink when a guest drops in, Indians look for an excuse to offer you a snack with a cuppa—it’s a part of our hospitable tradition. Almost the entire range of Indian snacks were—and still are—vegetarian. Perhaps this, too, had something to do with a mistrust of the kind of meat used in the market. Not any more. Murgh Pakora, Kheema Samosa, etc, are recent innovations. There is even Kheema Dosai! The number of non-vegetarian snacks, however, still remains small. Regionwise, they find greater favour in the more ‘carnivorous’ North. The Kheema Dosai is surely the ‘creation’ of some up—country chef.