Pav Bhaji is Not INDIAN? Surprising Origin & History of Indian Food - FutureIQ

55,297 views Wait, is this logic right? • May 10, 2024

Slog Reference: The Surprising Histories of Indian Food

Description

Why Indian food is the best? The answer lies in the weird and surprising history of the Indian food. Let's understand how our beloved spices, potatoes, and many other things that are so ingrained in the Indian culture don't have Indian origins. Most of these came quite recently in India. This is a fascinating tale of the history of Indian food and its links to many historical events worldwide.

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Additional material if you want to know more:
The surprising truth about Indian food: https://tapthe.link/WtF8lM-FK
Wikipedia - Chilli: https://tapthe.link/ygGSdcYdg
Wikipedia - Potato: https://tapthe.link/jXx3dnEkV
Wikipedia - Ketchup: https://tapthe.link/6jaz_BvVF
Pav-Bhaji & civil war: https://tapthe.link/3Xn37xKC0
Vir Sanghvi on Pav: https://tapthe.link/5i8VJMvRc
Wikipedia - Chiken Tikka Masala: https://tapthe.link/D_w8P7avr
ToI - Sabudana: https://tapthe.link/oe_48Nzem
Wikipedia - Jalebi: https://tapthe.link/ibeih59Ww
Wikipedia - Gulab Jamun: https://tapthe.link/lTdlXN9v8
Wikipedia - Samosa: https://tapthe.link/osUXVUpV8
Science of food's deliciousness: https://tapthe.link/_L0mNI9T0
Prevalence of vegetarianism in India: https://tapthe.link/n4oNGqP2w
Idli's origins: https://tapthe.link/wRFOifAqN

#futureiq #indianfood #indianculture

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The Surprising Histories of Indian Food

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- what if I told you that PO baji exists in India because Abraham Lincoln decided to free slaves in the US what also think of the ingredients in po baji potatoes Tomatoes capsicum correct cauliflower correct sometimes beetroot depending on who puts it and pow and pow yeah not a single one of those ingredients existed in India 500 years ago what so we were an Agri cultural country agrarian country so po baji none of the ingredients in pow baji other than say salt and pepper are Indian and the concept exists because of the American Civil War okay I am thly confused what what is happening here so okay let's start with the ingredients right okay potatoes right you think of it as like

0m 53s you know Indian food is potatoes right B masala dosa potatoes are native to South America they did not exist in the rest of the world before Columbus discovered the Americas so 1492 1498 whatever 1500s the Portuguese bagama and others they are the ones that brought potatoes to India yeah okay not just potatoes but a whole bunch of other things Tomatoes came from there right before that in all of the World Europe Etc ketchup meant mushroom plus spices okay so ketchup had nothing to do with tomato back then ketchup had nothing to do with tomatoes back then okay the thing that Indian food is famous for merchi chili yeah didn't exist in India wait okay that has come

1m 46s from Mexico okay okay before we used to have black pepper correct okay and that black pepper was like really difficult to grow okay it requires too much water um so it was you know it's more of a coastal thing it it is and as soon ASI came here the country just loved it because it was so much easier to grow than Pepper and it just quickly replaced pepper in our food yeah merch literally grows everywhere you grow MCH in your Terrace Gardens yeah yeah and a whole bunch of those other things right I mean cauliflower and all of that guwa chiku cashew nuts all of them have come from there okay not just that but the pow in

2m 32s pow baji well that was that I remember is a Portuguese import I think the Portuguese brought it to Bombay and then it spread to the rest of the I mean you know in how uh French bread is called pain and in Spanish Portuguese languages also that's where the word pow comes from okay French word is p exactly but the spelling and pronunciations of those languages are a pain for sure yes sad Jokes Aside uh but what's the connection with the American Civil War okay so uh in the 1860s right American Civil War is happening Abraham Lincoln is trying to free the slaves uh North America versus southern part of the US Union versus Confederate right

3m 16s yeah so now New Orleans is where there were a lot of cotton plantations and that cotton used to get shipped to Europe corre to England via the Mississippi okay right and and Abraham Lincoln's Navy yeah to kill the economy of the South blockaded the Mississippi there so cotton from there no longer is coming to Manchester cotton prices shot up in Manchester guess what guju businessman in Bombay did at that time oh yeah I remember oh interesting go on go on go on so they decided okay cotton prices are up and cotton there is a shortage we need to take advantage of this right so they set up cotton Mills in Bombay not just that but they ran at

4m 04s like you know very late hours okay now imagine workers working late hours in a mill in Bombay right by the time they are done their wives are asleep yeah okay they need food to eat so someone else has to make the food they found a scalable method of preparing a large amount of food right just take all the leftover vegetables from the day mash them up uh in a gravy with tomatoes and then nobody has time to make roties yeah right so put pow that's pow baji that's yeah so pow baji essentially began as a form of a stew basically put everything in a big patila and let it let it cook let it break down let it become a mash

4m 51s basic idea is that it can be made in large quantities quite easily unlike most of our regular food correct very interesting so Abraham Lincoln trying to free the slaves in America leads to the invention and consumption of paji here in India once again geography decides our history yeah no but sometimes it's just politics also decides food okay what so for example BAL takre of the Shiva he decided that a lot of his constituency right the marata uh people they are poor they need some way of making money correct and he came up with this idea of allowing them to set up roadside stalls with wapa oh yeah right so vapa which is now such a famous

5m 40s Bombay dish and famous all over started as Bal takre trying to create well wapa did exist before that as well oh no no of course it became popular and famous because of that right yeah yeah I remember uh this was probably during our College times and uh there was this entire thing about what was it or Zak stalls and then similarly Waba stalls uh it was a very interesting experiment and I think it also did work very uh very well yeah so yeah politics also decides our history of food as well there other very interesting interplay of uh factors right okay so now imagine Bombay right and there is all this p i v right so

6m 31s much vegetarian food yeah what do the non-vegetarian people do right so that is a niche that the iris came and filled oh not just that but one more interesting aspect right now all this veg food is dominated by the Gujarati people corre now if you imagine a building now think of the two Corner shops of the building okay the Gujarat shopkeepers didn't prefer those two Corner shops because they have a wide entrance and then narrow in the back okay that is called cuki okay whereas from a wasu point of view narrow opening and wide in the back guki is what they preferred so the corner shops used to be empty or at least they were cheaper I didn't know

7m 23s about this at all so there is a link take a look at that link which explains this but the basic idea is that the Irani people didn't care about this so they ended up putting Irani chai and you know Kima shops yeah every single Irani Hotel I've been to has been a corner shop you take good luck you take lucky which used to be there uh you take the you take Gul and matunga you take uh uh cayanis oh wow this is very interesting I mean of course you know this is 100 years ago over huh some of this has relaxed but you know those are the origins okay but so ranis are competing with what guus did with paaji how did

8m 03s they compete though what did they bring with them to compete with paaji how do you compete with paji Kima Kima PA yeah yeah Kima paw is a good competition to paji my mouth is watering I need to take a break after this episode all right interesting uh but sadly India is a vegetarian country so yeah you would think so don't you we what what there to think you look at the number of pure restaurants what fraction of Indians is vegetarian you think 60 65% 70% what fraction of Indian are vegetarian yeah 50 what do you think shangar 60 65 28% of India is vegetarian only what this is actual government of India statistics okay even historically

8m 54s we have been nonvegetarian if you read the vas yeah I read about the sacrifices they used to eat those sacrificed animals right yeah because what do you do if you sacrifice an animal what do you do with the meat you eat but again I mean if you try to think of the most vegetarian states in the country right you would come up with Gujarat yes right Rajasthan yes Tamil Nadu yes because of the abundance of temples there I'm guessing Rajasthan is correct okay the next two most vegetarian States are the opposite of what you think Punjab and harana wait what Punjab is 65% wedge harana is 68% veg okay what is the whole thing about Kar shukar in

9m 41s Punjab Tamil Nadu which you thought would be high up in vegetarian right 2% wge okay we just have a very bad idea of no listen I think there is something wrong with the data this data will have to be recalibrated reclassified or whatever I don't I listen Punjab and Tamil Nadu being only 2% V yes that's that just that just doesn't that doesn't doesn't make sense so another thing to keep in mind right is that you know ancient India was nonvegetarian so where did vegetarianism come from which was what I was thinking how did we get into this belief jism and Buddhism right those I mean if you remember your lessons from history these two decided

10m 34s that you know uh nonviolence is good suffering is bad and we shouldn't kill uh animals they were very big on sanctity of Life they are very big on sanctity of Life they are the ones who introduced uh vegetarianism right okay and what happened is that from say fifth century BC up till say the 1 Century ad there was a slow is especially of Buddhism in India and the Hindus began to worry that they're losing too many people to jism and Buddhism Buddhism mostly right and one of the great things about Hinduism is that it's an open source religion wait what do you mean open source religion see there is not one single book people open PRS and

11m 22s merge pool requests absolutely that's how Hinduism has grown absolutely right I mean can you out one book which is like this is it this is Hinduism and nothing else is Hinduism no I mean it is all The Vedas and all the upanishads and like whole bunch of things and those have been written by unknown people hundreds of them in some cases thousands of them right everybody just added something and survival of the fittest right the the best ideas stay on that's the resilience of Hinduism right that's why it has lasted everywhere else all other religions are kind of getting smashed and Hinduism just Hinduism is Lindy by Evolution it is I never thought I'd say that sentence in my life what

12m 07s what happened is that some of the ideas from Buddhism which were getting traction with the people Hinduism just Incorporated and you know there's no reason for you to go there because you know we do the same things now right so that's how you know Buddhism it went outside India and it spread in China and Sri Lanka and all those other places we reclaimed and that's how but also we have ended up with a good chunks of vegetarianism in I had a good chunk of all other religions as well that people started appreciating a lot okay this is this has been very eye opening but I'm also now because we started thinking about food I am now thinking what other

12m 52s uh what other food isn't Indian a lot of food isn't Indian okay Alum m wait Alo isn't Indian we've already established isn't Indian either green peas have come from Europe okay they're used to be brown peas in India but they were like dry more like Dal so the green juicy peas mutter doesn't didn't exist okay carrots that were in India long ago used to be like this purple thick dry carrots okay purple color carrots okay the juicy red carrots have actually come from Afghanistan so no gajwa correct so so Ram never ate gajar kaala okay cauliflower came from England in 1822 okay now also I want you to imagine u i mean I I'm from Maharashtra so I

13m 46s know maharashtrians well as in if there is like a religious important fast the maharashtrians are going to eat sabana K that's definitely not Indian I mean the Sab came in 1860 didn't exist before that yeah okay so yeah before that I think uh what what were they eating during upas actually is meant to be non to not eat so this is you know uh at least especially the maharashtrians I don't know if other Indians do this but it was a hack right because somebody made a list of things you can't eat this you can't eat this you can't eat this you can't eat this the intention was that you have to avoid eating right so

14m 28s they made a list of all carbohydrates you can't eat wheat you can't eat rice and so on right we just imported new carbohydrates from outside sabudana we can eat it didn't wasn't there in the list but sa is so yummy man I mean everything yummy is something you're not supposed to eat during a fast okay that's the whole point of a fast L I'm already racked by guilt because of the fact that I'm unable to whatever don't add to that guilt man forget ingredients let's look at actual dishes right which are not Indian m jalabi okay is not Indian okay it came in 1400s from Arabia whilea I mean originated in Turkey not surprised Samosa also came from the Middle East

15m 11s sad but not surprised gulab jamun came from the Persians and Arabs right Nan is a Persian dish that we have sort of perfected we do it better than everybody else of course that we do I mean we do Chinese food better than the Chinese so completely I'm with you there uh chicken tikta masala was invented in Scotland yes walu again is a Portuguese name right so all of these vindu is Portuguese I thought vindu was British uh kind vineard something like that I can't pronounce Portuguese but yeah that's car is meat it is meat dish of pork marinated in wine and garlic so that's VI andos okay V has nothing to do with Alo it but you know it came via Portugal Goa

16m 04s and from there it spread wow wow I'm thinking if I have to eat only Indian food swadesi Indian food yes so first of all let's think of what you will put in the TKA okay no red chili no green chili you can put Hali okay you can put Ry thank you black pepper yeah and Eli that's it what about the dal okay no no so you get that okay you you have Dal you have rice you have jawar okay so I can eat baky at least yes I'm not sure maybe wheat was there okay it's not really mentioned in clearly in our ancient books but probably wheat was there jaati at least vegetables you had

16m 49s Killa eggplant Bindy okay and then then you are like okay coconut mango jack fruit that's it the three vegetables that at the bottom of my list are the only vegetables available to me let me give you the good news right please we invented the tandur yeah but what are you going to put in it K brel anything you put in the tandur becomes yummy okay the other thing we gave the world sugar okay in fact the word candy has come from Sanskrit in Sanskrit kand means sugar and that's where candy comes from wait doesn't kand mean a block no there's a different kand okay also we give the world the rest of the spices right 75% of the world spices

17m 36s come from India what do you do with the spices and there is nothing to add the spice to I mean you what are you going to do add spice to Kella and bral the correct answer is to stop being so jingoistic about oh this is Indian food it has you know ancient Indian food there's no such thing right I mean we should embrace the fact that we are a Melting Pot of cultures and we are an open Source religion we an open source food place we just incorporate things and just grow bigger that I completely agree I mean when when we take a recipe we elevate it to Heights yes that I completely agree so yeah go on take as

18m 13s many recipes as many ingredients as many different things in food as you want and create something new something nice exactly which is why you know manuri and Dosa is a good thing I absolutely agree Manchurian Dosa is brilliant chesan Dosa is even more brilliant there's a place in Andheri where I us love jamun pizza sometimes he goes too far but it's okay cuz that's naven Shri Kant future IQ oh wait if you like this episode you will like our episode on why India is the most populous country in the world check it out