Papads

Call them papads or papadams, or appalams in the south—these are the universally popular flat breads of India. Papads are usually, though not invariably, made of the flour of various dals, sometimes plain, sometimes highly seasoned. (A friend recently gave me fabulous potato papads from Benares with coriander leaves embedded in them.) Making papads requires the kind of time, space, and labor that most urban households lack. The dough has to be rolled paper-thin and the parchmentlike disks laid out to dry in the sun. In some rural communities, papads are made by cooperatives of women who take the dough home from a central mixing station and bring it back rolled, dried, and stacked, ready to be packed up and sent to cities in India and all over the world.