Street foods for breakfast in Kolkata

People of Kolkata love to have breakfast in the form of singara (samosa) or kachuri and jiipi (jilebi). This is a combination that many households follow even though they might have regular breakfast later. The bottom line is their inherent weakness for these items. Believe it or not, the vendors begin their activities much before the day breaks. The singara and kachuri are deep fried stuff and require some preparatory work. Once they are ready, the items vanish before the snap of the finger. The next batch of customers have no other option but to wait.

As to the jilebis – these are sweet. Those who live in Kolkata love sweets. Yes, many of them know that these are harmful to health, especially those who are diabetic. In spite of this, they feel items like jiliebis can bring zing into life. This item are fried in full view of the public. They are then immersed in a huge container of sugar syrup, removed and sold to the customers. These, like the singara and kachuri, are fast moving items and vanish in the twinkling of the eye. Those who arrive late have to repent.

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School days – the fast food culture

In my school days, fast food range was limited and would end with singara (or samosa), a triangular shapes shell made of kneaded flour and stuffed with mashed potato. Then there was the jilebi – a sweet item that required expertise to create. The mixture would be released directly into boiling oil and the creator would keep on twisting his wrists to ensure that the link never got broken.

Another fast food was the kachuri – these came in the form of flat casing of kneaded flour stuffed with a paste of dal. In winter, the stuffing would be of kadaishuti or green peas. Here again there were two varieties – one was with the peas made into paste and the second was with the peas boiled and left whole but seasoned with spices.
The second variety was a specialty of Dwarik Ghosh – these would be fried in pure ghee and the taste would be heavenly. The number of items was always limited every day and would be available only in the evening - unless one arrived on time, one would have to leave empty handed.

Then there were the high end fast foods like Mughlai Paratha or the vegetable chop or mutton cutlets or Kabiraji culets – these were not meant for children hence, I had to wait till college to taste these forbidden fast foods. (to be continued…)