A journey through time in Calcutta

I had to start my food trail with the city’s famous street food and, like any culinary city crawl, the most important thing to remember is to pace yourself. There is a serious belief that the kati roll was born in Calcutta; the beautifully cooked layered breads, wrapped around succulent and delicious kebabs, were so good that I was convinced this had to be where they were first created. Chaat is also synonymous with Calcutta, so I made my way to a very popular chaat hub in Park Street and opted for the more local jhaal muri (a puffed rice snack), ghughni (dried peas in sauce), churmur and several helpings of puchkas (semolina pastries). There is something so pleasurable about eating out on the street amid organised chaos.

Next came a pit stop at Bancharam, one of the famous sweet shops, for a singara (their version of a samosa), gud ka sondesh (a milk-based sweet made with a very seasonal molasses, only available for two months each year), the best rosogollas (a syrupy dessert – my favourite) and mishti doi (sweet yoghurt). It also felt special having cha (tea) served in bhar, bio-degradable terracotta cups used for drinking tea, lassi or mishti doi, but a shame that they’re discarded after only one use. It’s a part of the Indian heritage that still thrives in Bengal.

The Anglo-Indian community in Kolkata has a very unique culture and spawned its own micro-cuisine; being half Anglo-Indian myself, it was special to walk around the places where the community had clustered, which is famed for Christmas festivities and food, particularly baked goods. It was a treat to exchange notes with some of the residents about our favourite dishes – ball (kofta) curry, railway lamb, oxtail stew or guava cheese.

I am quite vociferous and obvious about my love for another amazing cuisine that was born here – Indo-Chinese (In India it is simply referred to as Chinese). The early Hakka Chinese settlers came looking for work in the ports of Bengal and set up little hawker stalls for their community. The Bengalis (and later the rest of India) took to the cuisine in a huge way and it is now probably one of every Indian’s top five favourite cuisines.

An early morning walk through the Tirretta Bazaar in old Chinatown gives you a real peek into this world of food. The bustling market is full of fresh fruit and vegetables, with some vendors offering a Chinese breakfast of freshly steamed chicken and pork momo's, fish ball soup, pao buns and prawn shu mei. I also saw strings of freshly made sausages on sale, which is quite unusual at a fresh market in India. The bazaar starts to wrap up around 7.30am as it morphs into a busy business district, leaving no trace of the market behind. Tangra, the new Chinatown, is dotted with many restaurants serving cheap and cheerful fare.

Traipsing around north Calcutta, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a home-cooked Bengali feast in a friend’s traditional (and ancestral) home. Tucking into fresh luchi (puri), aloo dom (potato curry), mochar (banana flower), maach baaja (fried fish), paturi (fish marinated in mustard, wrapped in banana leaf and steamed), delicate chingri malai (prawns in coconut milk) and shorshe maach (fish curry in a mustard gravy) was fantastic. The use of mustard in its various forms gives Bengali cuisine its distinct flavour profile. Mustard oil is used to cook most curries and is even drizzled over jhaal muri, giving it a nice punch. The fantastic kashundi mustard paste is used as a rub or marinade and makes a fantastic dip. Black mustard seeds are of course an integral part of the Bengali five spice mix called paanch phoron, along with fennel, cumin, nigella and fenugreek seeds. This spice mix is also used for pickling, marinades, tempering lentils and vegetables (try roasted sweet potatoes), in curries and even to flavour bread dough.