History of Pav Bhaji
Pav bhaji is a fast food dish from India, consisting of a thick vegetable curry, fried and served with a soft bread roll.
Image credit- Wikipedia
History
Street food is very recent in Indian cities and its origins can be dated to around 1840. This is when a group of Gujaratis began trading in the area now known as Dalal Street, starting Asia’s first stock exchange a few years later. They traded mainly in cotton, and many made fortunes in the period 1861-65 when global supply of the stuff was affected by the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln’s navy blockaded New Orleans and the Mississippi and Manchester’s looms came to a halt, sending cotton prices shooting. The Gujarati merchant is one of the world’s finest managers of uncertainty and he made a lot of money. These early globalizers worked, as today’s call centre workers, late into the night when rates were wired in and orders wired out at American and European times. By then everyone would be quite famished and the wives would be asleep at home.
This demand for regular food at an unusual time created a unique supply. The traders were served by street stalls that invented a late-night special: pav bhaji.
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Pav Bhaji mashed vegetables (all the leftovers) cooked in a tomato gravy and served with buttered loaves. The loaf came from the Portuguese Jesuits, who settled in Bandra around the mid-1500s. It has been neatly absorbed into Indian fast food, soaking up the oil and gravies that Indians love.
Pav bhaji was later served at restaurants throughout the city. It is now offered at outlets from simple hand carts to formal restaurants in India and abroad.
Image credit- Getty Images
Pav bhaji has many variations in ingredients and garnishes, but is essentially a spiced mixture of mashed vegetables in a thick gravy served hot with a soft white bread roll, usually cooked on a flat griddle (tava).
Variations on pav bhaji include:
- Cheese pav bhaji, with cheese on top of the bhaji
- Fried pav bhaji, with the pav tossed in the bhaji
- Paneer pav bhaji, with paneer cheese in the bhaji
- Mushroom pav bhaji, with mushrooms in the bhaji
- Khada pav bhaji, with vegetable chunks in the bhaji
- Kolhapuri pav bhaji, using a spice mix common in Kolhapur
- White pav bhaji, with no garam masala or no chilli powder.
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