Pani Puri the Tangy Indian Puffed Water Balls

Masala dosa, chole bhature, dhokla, idli, samosa, and chaat creates a commonality in Indian households in otherwise regionally dominated cuisine.     

Pani Puri is part of a large ensemble of snack foods that have no nutritional value but swashbuckling taste. It can send you into a trance, and you go on consuming one after another.  Not necessarily hot, Indian chaat is more of a sweet and tangy experience. The snacks are often deep-fried using clarified butter or vegetable oil, but snacks like bhel puri need little oil.    

Boiled potato, shredded onions, tamarind, curd, and sev are common features but other ingredients may change as per the regional preference. Sev is a deep-fried Indian noodle made of gram flour with or without spices. Central to all ingredients are sweetened tamarind chutney, garlic sauce, green chutney, chaat masala, and in the case of water balls the flavored mint water as mentioned above. A dash of lime juice is the final step in most of the recipes.   

For most with immense gastronomic addiction, these snacks are a daily draw but for many, it is an occasional treat. Avid shoppers take a quick bite now and then when furtively seeking to fill in their shopping bags. Perhaps markets would be left vacant if the vendors go on a hunger strike.   

The tangy water balls are sold by various names like gol gappe, pani puri, fulke, batashe, and so on. These snacks have a gender bias with women being their major consumers. 

Nowhere is chaat more popular than in Northern India. The varieties of gastronomic delights are unlimited here. Each vendor creates his own tongue-tingling recipe, and like the samosa creates a niche for survival. One of the important landmarks and features of towns and cities in the chaat stall has succeeded in outdoing all others in order to create a name for itself. 

Ask a rickshaw puller or a taxi driver and he will lead you to the most famous without faltering. The pani puri or chaat stalls are usually situated in the bustling hub of urbanity. The dense crowd pulls huge numbers to the stalls. Call it a marketing strategy but the crowded India bazaars are where it all started. But do not be disappointed if you snobber at traveling to crowded streets or old-fashioned Indian bazaars, your next-door shopping mall or fast food joint will be able to serve you the savory in style.      

Such is the popularity and demand for chaat that spices and ingredients used in it help create unique flavors for modern-day junk food be it noodles, pasta, pizza, or burger. Most of the readymade snacks and fast foods marketed by major brands find their range ineffective without introducing products with Indian spice recipes. Hence for all Western fast food packed or served, there is an Indian Master chef behind in the lab kitchen.

Global fast-food brands introduce what Indians like the most and cannot stick to homogeneity. Within one year they come to understand the imperative of spicy twists and turns when facing rejections. Indian food is strikingly diverse initially difficult to fathom for foreigners. The palate commands respect and will not tow into global preferences.   

Chaat has become a colossal industry in India. The lone vendor on the street leaves behind an organized kitchen at home. Though most of the sellers are males there is no gender bias, it is a smart division of labor. Women and family members make preparations at home for a quick dish out at the stall. Even small sweet shops sell these snacks and end up employing small-time cooks. The work is also resourced to local villagers by shop owners who order in bulk.  

If you wish to consume the water balls at home carry them from the stall or buy the ready-made ones online from the eCommerce sites or from a store around the corner. 

A mind-boggling luscious junk food feeds millions in the small-scale sector and keeps India moving.