World on the city’s plate
- POSTED ON: 21 Aug, 2021
- TOTAL VIEWS: 762 Views
- POSTED BY: Madhumitha Srinivasan
- ARTICLE POINTS: 150 Points
Chennai’s cuisine is influenced by communities from around the world that call it home. Discover some of them…
Burma
Large-scale emigration of Tamils from Burma (now Myanmar) in the 1960s saw many settle down in Chennai, forming a colony close to the beach in the North of the city. One of the many things they brought with them was Burmese cuisine. To this day, there are street stall and restaurants that serve Burmese food; the most popular being atho (athok or thouk in Burma). It is a salad-like dish with grated vegetables and fried onions tossed in garlic oil, chilli powder, salt, masala powder and lime juice. It is topped with orange noodles and crushed crispy bejo and coriander. Bejo is another Burmese specialty — a fried snack made of rice flour and groundnuts. Other popular Burmese food served in Chennai are mohinga — maida noodles served in a bowl of soup, masala eggs and plantain soup.
Anglo-Indian
Chennai’s vibrant Anglo-Indian community has ensured that dishes like Pork devil fry, Devil’s Chutney and Chicken Ding Ding continue to tease the locals’ taste buds. The cuisine is typically the Indian version of British food made with local ingredients, spices and cooking techniques. In fact, this could very well be the first fusion food ever in the country’s history. Chicken Ding Ding is made with sun-dried meat — probably originated when excess meat was sun-dried and preserved for rainy days. Devil’s Chutney is a sharp-tasting paste of onions, salt, sugar, vinegar and a bit of red chilli powder. Peekingkoy — the Anglicised name of the Peerkangai, (ridge gourd) — served with beef; Bobo Curry, an Anglo-Indian version of the chicken curry; Mulligatawny Soup — a rasam and soup hybrid — are some of the popular dishes.
China
The thriving Chinese community at Kolkata was the first to set up Chinese food stalls over 200 years ago. Eventually, they adapted the food to suit the Indian palate — with the inclusion of Indian vegetables and spices. Thus, Indo-Chinese cuisine was born in its many versions. And the city of Chennai was only happy to add this cuisine to its multicultural culinary offering. Today, popular dishes like the Manchurian and Schezwan — which bears no resemblance to the dishes from China’s Sichuan Province — are served in every restaurant and street food stall in the city.
With innovations like Schezwan dosa, spring roll dosa and chilli idli, even local dishes have not escaped the Chinese influence.
Guess the origin
Based on your reading of the article, can you guess which foreign cuisine these dishes are from or inspired from? Burmese, Sri Lankan, Chinese or Anglo-Indian