This has always been a mystery to me. Why does institutional food look, smell and taste as it does? Years in college and university “messes” should have made me an expert, but while I do of course understand that cooking on a large scale is going to compromise quality, it's hard to fathom why the same population gets better food in the chai shop outside, despite its having minimal infrastructure or staff and zero subsidies.
Our college canteen, run by Nippy and Guttu, had the best chow mien , chana bhaturas , omelettes and qeema paratha rolls. On some days I would go through their entire repertoire in the first break between classes and then start again in the next. Whenever my parents came to Delhi they'd ask if I had any debts to settle, and there always were — because Nippy and Guttu allowed us credit. I think all the hostellers ate at the canteen and yet it managed to serve delicious food. The chow mien was crunchy, with undercooked spring onions and capsicum and shredded omelette on top, soya sauce and viscous green chilli sauce in stubby bottles on the side. The qeema in the paratha roll was clean and fragrant, with just enough gravy to hold together. Bhaturas were crisp and golden and obviously fried in really hot oil because they appeared to have absorbed none.
Right opposite college gates there was matra-kulcha . A moustached, blue-eyed Rajasthani man and his eight or nine-year-old son together catered to hundreds of college girls, off a tall trestle table that he later collapsed and took away until the next morning. By noon he was in place, with a tilted, gleaming, round bottomed brass bhagona filled with boiled matra . It was cooked with just salt, and there, on the spot, he assembled the dish. He ladled the matra into a leaf doona , added a mixture of ground spices — mostly roasted cumin and red chillies; then a spoonful of tamarind pulp; squeezed half a lemon; and topped it with chopped green chillies, grated radish — in season — and onions. The boy heated the kulchas on a griddle on a small kerosene stove. Torn off pieces did duty as spoons, and mopped up the thick, tart, curry, which was elevated from a starchy mess to a delicious curry with sharp surprises.
Some luxuries
At university there was of course the standard coffee board outlet, with dosai, vada-sambhar and coffee which we had with cream when flush with funds, but that closed in the evening. If there was time there was Mataji ka dhaba near the down-campus library, whose menu was much like the hostel mess, but maybe it was the sitting on the grass in the winter sun or the absence of the mess fug; it was enjoyable.
I remember particularly her aloo methi, arhar ki dal with red chillies and red tomato chhaunk dished out in small white ceramic bowls, andthe tawa phulkas; and despite the grit in the methi leaves, the déjeuner sur l'herbe was better than a picnic with artisan bread and foie gras.
Then, exhausted with the sheer effort of being in the library, we had to step out for periodic refreshment. Nearing tea-time we waited for the smell of deep frying and collected to wait for hot samosas and bread pakoras at the tiny kiosk outside. This was in the days before disposable foil-lined paper plates, so orders would be placed, a thick, chipped white china plate would be splashed with bright red ketchup and samosas too-hot-to-handle would be broken open in the plate, roughly mashed on the ketchup smudge, and swallowed with tea or instant coffee.
Egg exercise
For late night hunger there were tea shops which stocked biscuits, “fans” — some sort of Danish pastry? — and made eggs to order. The image of the egg exercise is memorable. There would be a crowd of people yelling “ chaar chai, ek cheeni kum, do bun-anda ” and Kashi Ram would remember who asked for what and send it forth. The tea, in brown Khurja mugs was — in retrospect — a thick sugary beverage of the cheapest tea, and towards the wee hours, at the close of business, he was straining tea, keeping the black grounds, and using them again for a “fresh” kettle. He had a small enamel mug in which he whipped eggs with a small whisk, the kind that looks like a steel spring. A greying aluminium basin of chopped onions and green chillies, a plastic bath-mug of salt near his left hand and a blackened, misshapen iron frying pan on the stove were his tools. The chopped onions would be whisked with the egg, the omelette fried, lifted out on a greasy steel spatula, the two halves of a bun pressed in the hot pan and a sandwich was ready. If only the hostel mess could have run to similar standards! Because that bun- anda , was truly, deeply, satisfying. Its crumbling white bread, with the occasional “cherry”, was slightly sweet, the cut edges crisped and oily from the hot frying pan, and the egg so quickly beaten and flash fried that it was hot, tender, shiny with oil, and crunchy with coarsely chopped onions that had turned violet in the iron skillet. At home sometimes I try to duplicate that flavour, but despite all the ingredients, there's no success. Possibly the skillet, seasoned like that of a Michelin star rated auberge, cannot be substituted with Teflon or even Le Creuset.
