Celebrating generosity, resilience, and community spirit of street vendors

To say that India has a street food scene that is vibrant, diverse, and utterly delicious is not an understatement. Almost every city has its own unique repertoire of dishes, and the variety of local ingredients, flavours, and cooking techniques is truly mind-boggling. Capturing this diversity of Indian street food is Bazaar Bites, a book written by well-known writer and seasoned food critic Priya Bala and restaurateur Jayanth Narayanan.

The well-researched book chronicles the street food scene of over 40 cities from all over India. According to the authors, work on the book commenced in 2019, but due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, the manuscript was completed in late 2023.

While the street food of cities like Delhi, Amritsar, Mumbai, Kolkata, and even Lucknow is fairly well known, the book covers other cities like Davangere, Kottakal, Cuttack, Jodhpur, and Srinagar whose food scene is relatively unknown.

So, from the fluffy benne (butter) dosas of Davangere that have mandakki (puffed rice) as the secret ingredient and the avil milk (a Malabar cooler made with cold milk, soaked flattened rice, local bananas, puffed rice, and peanuts) of Kottakal to the chakuli (dumplings made from a fermented batter of urad dal and rice and steamed on a cloth stretched over simmering water) of Cuttack, the fini (a 1 am snack of jalebi with warm milk) of Jodhpur, and lotus stem fritters, as well as walnut fudge of Srinagar, the book covers a multitude of local and hyperlocal dishes.

The cities are organised as chapters, and each chapter gives a comprehensive account of the city’s character, culture and cuisine. From pushcarts and hole in the wall eateries to temple fare and beach snacks, the book encompasses great detail.

For example, while Kozhikode’s biryani is famous, the city’s beach snacks like deep-fried mussels as well as masala quail eggs are a revelation. So is the papdi-chutney of Hubli that is made from chickpea flour, green chillies, mint, ginger, garlic, and tamarind.