From dosa to chicken chettinad

Lalit Mohan

It is surprising that notwithstanding the much-touted age-old cultural unity of India, culinary integration of our nation has taken a long time coming. Until the 1950s, the dosa — a common item of south Indian diet — was hardly known in Punjab. However, early in the decade, when a ‘coffee house’ was opened on the first floor of a building opposite what was then Company Bagh (presumably to commemorate the East India Company) in Jalandhar, it became an instant hit.

The flavour of dosa, though quite different from the usual Punjabi fare, caught the fancy of the locals. But it took a little longer for them to take to sambar as the curry to dunk it in. Initially, Punjabis who went to the restaurant insisted that they be served tomato ketchup with it. To the staff, who were mostly from south of the Vindhyas, this was sacrilege. It led to many verbal skirmishes, but in the end the customer, being the king, always won!

With time, sambar too regained its rightful place in the combo and now no one really orders ‘tamater saas’ with the dosa. In fact, the flavour of the dish is so compelling that it has gone to the top of my list of cuisines. Whenever the issue of going out for a meal comes up in our family, my vote generally goes to southern eateries.

However, despite gaining popularity in the North, the dosa and its affiliates were still commonly labelled junk food. At home, I had to battle this prejudice until I pointed out that this was the fare PT Usha was brought up on. That was a clinching argument.

Over time, we discovered that there was more to South Indian cuisine than dosas or vadas or idlis. The non-vegetarian dishes were not to be sneezed at either (unless one is allergic to the strong aroma). This should not have been surprising since peninsular India has sea on both sides, hence marine food would be a common item in their menu. But we found that even land-based fauna could be delectable. So, today chicken chettinad bids fair to compete with butter chicken (of Ludhiana fame).

Indians are waking up to the variety of dishes from different parts of the country and we now have access to a treasure house of cuisines. Even in the South Indian section, we have begun to appreciate the difference in dosas from, say, Tamil Nadu and Mysore. The chefs from the Deccan, too, have shed some of their initial reluctance to experiment with different fillings in the flag-bearer dish of southern food. But I do hope that when serving an accompaniment to the dosa, somewhere a line will be drawn and tomato ketchup will never usurp the place that rightfully belongs to sambar alone.