WET MARKET VENDORs AT VILE-PARLE WEST in Mumbai…. do better business with winter vegetables which the public awaits eagerly.
By Tara Narayan
THE best holiday for me is in Mumbai that was Bombay, the good life is there and it can spoil one rotten. Anyway, it always spoils me for I was returning to my mother’s home after five years since she passed away and it was mixed feelings for once she was not there as a welcoming fixture, but my sister number 2 was there and she has learned to cook…makes a great ginger tea in the morning (not sugared), mushroom filled omelette served on some most agreeable multi-seeded sourdough bread which literally falls apart after toasting, thinly sliced and very flavorful with some Amul butter smeared on and some French marmalade (must find out the name, although the best orange marmalade I’ve eaten came from Korea and long, long ago I’d got a big bottle from Magsons in Panaji, where else).
But to stay with my fortnight’s flight to Mumbai my usual joys include taking pleasure in my favourite Udipis and farsan shops at the Vile Parle (East) and Santa Cruz (East) wet markets…which are chok-a-blok with all kinds of Guju farsan, the best farsan must surely come from Gujarat but then I am biased being a born Guju but influenced by many other cultures in years to come.
I suppose one may translate farsan to savouries with regional touch although some have become famous across the sub-continent of India and abroad, wherever the Gujarati community has migrated to settle…they won’t forget such things as khakra, fafda, thepla, ghatia, sev, chevdo, sankarpala, muthia, bhakri…and now the thin khakra and bhakri in various millet versions, plain or filled with masala and aromatic with spices. A healthy streak has crept into Guju farsan and they come also baked or not oily at all! Taste the thyme seeds in them, aniseed, cumin, sesame, garlic and Kashmiri chilli, black pepper I can never resist (best king of spices).
There is the dry farsan and the fresh farsan of various kinds of dhokla, currently oondhiyu (a winter time medley of veggies for it will feature several kinds of field beans like valor, Surti papdi, katori papdi, purple yam, yellow yam, kacha banana, Surti ringda (baby brinjals), cooked and garnished with freshly chopped garlic, green garlic and sometimes grated fresh coconut)…stir it all up and relish with the thinly rolled, desi ghee-laced rotli. Yummilicious! There is also dry oondhiyu and gravy oondhiyu, ready-made and sold in various farsan shops of the distant Western suburbs of Mumbai. Richie rich housewives who have little to do but talk attire, jewellery, this and that latest marriage – and yes, watch Netflix films all day long.
Oh well, maybe not all day long – they order their maharaj (Guju chef) to make baked oondhiyu today to be served with “bajra-no-rotlo” (thick pearl millet roti) with “leela lahsun” chutney (a kind of Maharashtrian-styled “techa”, garlic greens crushed with green coriander, green chilli, maybe coconut or roasted gram and just salt and lemon juice…absolutely to live for).
I buy large aonla (the kind which go into the making murabba and the country’s favourite tonic food chywanprash), yellow haldi and creamy amba haldi /ginger – and make my favourite winter time relish. You may find lots of fresh turmeric in Goan markets but not the creamy white mango ginger called amba haldi – the astringent intense yellow fresh turmeric and white mango make for a terrific marriage by way of a fresh relish on the table. One may scrape, slice the two gingers thinly or thickly as per personal taste, toss in sea salt and lemon juice and bottle, eat the same day or a day later, store in fridge. Make chutney if you wish and use as per wish, respectively. This fresh amba-haldi relish is to Guju and Maharashtrian home what Delhi’s winter-time gobi-shalgam relish is (but then Delhi and the Punjab kitchens have their own range of fresh winter fare).
What else? Too much to think about individually! I shop for Kashmiri or “potli luhsan” – nugget garlic which is the costliest garlic at Rs2,500 but it comes with a good health brief. (Sigh) So many things I did not buy to take back to Goa, for whom! I’m the only one who chases food to live and to die. My sister number 2 Kalpana Ullal’s only son had got married in New Zealand and was back home in Juhu, Mumbai, it was one long round of luncheons and dinners at various smart resto-bars and sport-bars like Pop Tates at Seven Bungalows and the one near Infiniti Mall in suburban Malad…and over the FIFA match which was on large screen at the sports resto-bar of Pop Tates, I discovered how delicious peri peri fries can be and loaded nachos for the first time!
Everyone’s serving peri peri potato French fries in many restaurants including the club restaurants…some superlative, good, or “no brainers” (a chic new phase I picked up recently from young PYTs or pretty young things newly married). Pop Tates specializes in a variety of steaks veg and non-veg, served very well and a delight to time pass with over small talk …and the match of course which inspired a kind of camaraderie amongst diners with Messi’s every victory!
I LOVE my Mumbai that was Bombay and bought freshly cut pineapple from the historic and fascinating Juhu lane market almost every other day to breakfast on pineapple chunks with stalk intact, no throwing away of crunchy stalk. Only in Mumbai the vendors will cleanly cut pineapple and put it on sale in clean plastic bag (plastic part one should boycott somehow)…Rs70 or Rs100 per pineapple; and the Nagpur oranges selling at Rs70-Rs100 per dozen too. Mumbai suburbia is much cheaper than Goa marketplace. Say, the good life is much cheaper in big metropolis Mumbai and much more exciting, never mind the dust, snarling traffic, roadworks, the autowallah who don’t know directions and want you to guide them like you are driving the autoriksha for them, although the smart ones do Google mapping and the starting rate for an auto ride is now in the final week of the year 2022, Rs23 per metre or so I think. I love the metered autos of Mumbai but wear your mask for protection against the pollution and ear plugs for protection against honking and full blasts! While in Mumbai I am always haunted by yesteryear Hindi film “CID” (1956) song emoted by the irresistible Johny Walker, “Aye dil hai mushkil jina yaha, jara hat key jara bachkey, yeh hai Bombay mere jan…” and etcetera.
I can get pretty nostalgic when I am in my Bombay and this time around I was going five years after my mother passed away and felt her absence. Alas, this time around I did not even catch the fast or slow train downtown to Churchgate or Victoria Terminus to walk the streets like I used to do so long ago in the 70s,80s and 90s when I was a working woman in various media offices.
