Papad – a truly Indian food item from Kashmir to Kanyakumari

If anyone was asked to name the truly Indian food item loved from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the answer would invariably be ‘papad’ – a product that is truly Indian in nature. Papad (or papadum) as described in Wikipedia is ‘a thin, crisp disc-shaped Indian and Pakistani food typically based on a seasoned dough made from black gram, fried or cooked with dry heat’.
Papads are usually taken in either baked condition or fried – both taste divine. In olden days, the fried papads were an integral part of village fairs. The shopkeepers would keep frying the papads while his customers, the young and old alike, waited to grab their papad bhjaja and munch it as they moved from one stall to another.
In order to make papad, different ingredients and methods are used and, the most popular one uses urad dal or blackgram. Its flour is mixed with spices like black pepper, salt and kneaded into a dough – this dough is then made into tiny roundels, flattened and dried in the sun. Once fully dry, they are stored in airtight containers for future use.

There are other types of papad that are made from sabudana, and potato, and, of course, the masala papad where dried spices like red chilli are added. Papad making is a sort of cottage industry and, in the place where I live in Nashik, the women of the locality get together and pool their labor resources to prepare the annual requirement. And, believe it or not, they make much more than their normal requirement. The excess they sell off to others. Some of them, who have good contacts, make good money out of their abilities.
Incidentally, in Gujarat, women have taken up this papad manufacture in a big way through cooperatives and are now owners of a multimillion dollar enterprise with their products being exported. (to be continued …)
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)
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