Dahi Bara Alu Dam

Yes, such a thing exists, and it is exactly what the name suggests: dahī baŗā and ālū dam tossed together. But to explain why I'm writing about it (and more importantly, how is it that people actually eat such a concoction), I'll have to start from Cuttack's reputation as a street-eat Mecca of sorts. Or rather, why I think this reputation is largely bunk. Odisha's culinary heritage is notable by any standards. Its confectionery in particular is justly famous. But much of its junk food is derivative, at best regional variants of stuff whose provenance lies elsewhere. Cuttack's famous rolls are merely a harshly-spiced version of what one gets in Kolkata. Gupchup is only a variation of the pānipūri concept ubiquitous throughout the country. Singra is likewise only a version on the pan-Indian samosā theme, itself a distant progeny of the Persian sambūsak. Ālū Chop? Try the ones in Kolkata to see where the Cuttack variant comes from. And about Chowmien and Chilli Chicken, the less said the better.

Dahi Bara Alu Dam, then, can be considered Cuttack's one true contribution to street-eatery. But oh dear! it's nowhere near so simple. Once yet again, none of its three chief components originates from Odisha. Dahī baŗā (dahī bhallā, thāir vaŗāi), or fried urad dāl doughnuts soaked in a cold yogurt-based sauce, is popular throughout India as a snack or breakfast eat. Ghuguni, chickpea stewed in a thin, spiced gravy, is likewise common to most parts of eastern India. Non-Odiyas spell it with only one 'u'. Bengal boasts several variants, including one containing shredded mutton; the Odiya version is closer to the stock Bengali preparation. Ālū dam, potato slow-braised under steam in a mild gravy, is not even a snack. It is very much a serious eat, and served as a main course in Bengal, Kashmir, Punjab, most other parts of North India, and even Odisha.

So if all three components are prevalent outside too, then how is it that Dahi Bara Alu Dam itself is considered exclusively to Odisha? Perhaps the fact that such a combination is so strange as to be unimaginable has something to do with it. All three components are considered stand-alone preparations in their own right. And the thing about stand-alone preparations is that you usually tend to eat them separately, and not mix them up in one bowl. For good measure, ālū dam and ghuguni are both supposed to be eaten hot, while most Dahi Bara Alu Dam vendors don't even carry any heating equipment with them. Think cold Irish Stew added to pineapple pizza, and then equally cold pasta in marinara sauce poured over it, you'll get some approximate idea just how ghastly it sounds (sounds, mind you - how it actually tastes is another matter). Which is fine, but how did the combine come to exist in the first place? And why Odisha, specifically? Those, alas! are questions to which I don't think anyone has any reliable answers. I am convinced no conscious human thought-process could have come up with something like this. My own speculations tend towards serendipitous origins, maybe some idiot upsetting ālū dam into a basin of dahī baŗā or something.

Some modifications to the basic concepts have been incorporated over the years. Most versions of dahī baŗā use a yogurt sauce the consistency of, say, creamy soup - runny but not excessively so. But here it is thinned down to the consistency of chhāch. Then generally, it's the ālū in ālū dam that is supposed to predominate: the quantity of gravy varies between moderate, to a thick, viscous coating, to near-bone dry. Punjabis prefer to lace it with cream, tomato, even crushed cashew; the Bengali version is more restrained in its flavour, relying principally on aromatic spices like cumin. In Kashmir they tend to make copious use of mild dried chilli, but barring that one exception ālū dam is generally supposed to be mild. The Odiya version in particular is a blameless, innocuous little number that leans towards Bengali traditions. Or at least the ālū dam your next-door Aunty serves up when she invites you for lunch. The one you get with dahī baŗā varies on both counts. It is made up of potato chunks swimming in vast amounts of runny, vilely spiced gravy with great patches of chilli powder-stained oil floating on top.

It is no exaggeration to say the preparation is Cuttack's staple street-eat. People eat it for breakfast, as a snack, at times even as a lunch- or dinner-substitute. The city is full of Dahi Bada Alu Dam vendors. Over time some have risen to such prominence and prosperity as to set up regular shops. There's one in Kanika Chhak that ranks among the best you can get. I've been there once, thoroughly enjoyed the experience too, but that's not what the post is about. Here I talk about the itinerant vendors who ply their wares all over town. A few affect 50cc mopeds, but the overwhelming majority prefers bicycles. In fact the bicycle forms an integral part of their equipment. Two large spherical aluminium pots, containing dahī baŗā and ālū dam respectively, are suspended from either side of the handlebar. A smaller pot of ghuguni hangs down from the crossbar. Slung over the side of the real wheel is a jerrycan of water, useful for rinsing spoons and enabling customers to clean their hands. Other peripherals - canisters of chopped onion, sev, spices; metal spoons; a sheaf of donās or disposable sāl-leaf bowls - are tucked about in various crevices along the frame.

A ten-minute walk from our University lies Naraj Barrage, at the spit where the river Mahanadi and its distributary Kathajodi separate. It is a place of much scenic beauty, and is well-known as a venue for leisurely, low-octane, hanging-out. Several Dahi Bara Alu Dam vendors congregate there, including this surly character who charges from his makeshift shop an exorbitant thirty Rupees for six baŗās. To place this into perspective, my favourite vendor, Sh Rabi Sahoo, charges twenty for a plate of ten baŗās, albeit slightly smaller in size. A most affable man who comes over every morning from a neighbouring village, he prefers the traditional method of dispensing the stuff right from his bicycle. He also follows the classical procedure of assembling the thing together. The first thing he does is take off the pot lids and wedge them between the bicycle's frame and chain-guard. Then he takes a donā and scoops baŗās onto it with a long-handled ladle. Once he's got the right number of baŗās, he presses hard on them with the back of his ladle to squeeze out excess dahī into the pot. Next he spoons out a large helping of ālū dam, then a touch of ghuguni, and then sprinkles chopped onion, sev, some spice mixture, and there you are, that's it.

Now the crucial question, how does it taste? Yes, and this is where the weirdness of the whole thing reaches its pinnacle, it tastes bloody good. Some newcomers don't like it much, or complain it's nowhere near what it's made out to be. I don't know about that, I've always found it most satisfying. As to how that incongruous mishmash of standalone dishes yields something so tasty, don't ask me, I offer no rational explanations here. The baŗā's mild tartness contrasts well with the spice levels of the ālū dam; then chickpea combines well with the mushy potatoes, imparting a nuttiness to the latter; the onion and sev add pungent, crunchy counterpoints, and that's it. That's as far as my powers of analysis go. All I can say is, it makes for a delightful snack, and a fairly nutritious one too. Potato, yogurt, chickpea and all are healthy stuff. And while the Baras are deep-fried, they certainly do not exude oil, perhaps they have oil squeezed out of them too. Spice levels are kept to a minimum, since only small amounts of ālū dam and ghuguni are used. Hygiene is another matter altogether, especially given the copious amounts of (untreated) water used for the yogurt sauce. Then again, I don't ever recall Dahi Bara Alu Dam giving me an upset tummy. And hey, if you don't live life on the edge a little, then what's the point of having street food in the first place?

Oh, and one more thing - a minor announcement, in fact. Adding pictures to blogposts has posed a perennial problem. Lugging my DSLR around every time I encounter interesting street eats is clearly infeasible. On the other hand, the phones I've owned all tended to feature lousy cameras. Recently, and most certainly keeping the blog in mind, I've got myself a new phone, for once a model with a decent camera. It's a Samsung Galaxy J5, a joy to use due to its superlative AMOLED screen and capacity for memory cards of up to 128 GB. And I am happy to say that all pictures on this post were taken with it. The camera is decent, like I said, but could have been better. Especially in low light. Why they cannot improve phonecam low-light performance I have no idea.