Vada pav, alternatively spelt wada pao, is a
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetarianism m ...
fast food
Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...
dish native to the
Indian state
India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions.
History
Pre-indepen ...
of
Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...
. The dish consists of a deep fried potato dumpling placed inside a bread bun (''pav'') sliced almost in half through the middle. It is generally accompanied with one or more
chutney
A chutney is a spread in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion or mint dipping sauce.
...
s and a green
chili pepper
Chili peppers (also chile, chile pepper, chilli pepper, or chilli), from Nahuatl '' chīlli'' (), are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for ...
.
Although it originated as an affordable street food in
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
, it is now served in food stalls and restaurants across
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It is also called Bombay burger in keeping with its origins and its resemblance in physical form to a
burger.
The most famous snack in
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
, vada pav is claimed to be a part of the culture of
Mumbaikars.
Etymology
''
Batata vada
Batata vada ( mr, बटाटा वडा, ) is a popular vegetarian fast food dish from the Indian state of Maharashtra. The dish consists of a mashed potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and ...
'' in
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
literally means "potato fritter". It is a combination of the word for "potato" (''batata'') and ''
vada
Vada or Vayda may refer to:
People
*Gunnar Vada (1927–2018), Norwegian politician
*Vada Nobles, American record producer
*Vada Pinson (1938–1995), American baseball player
*Vada Sultenfuss, fictional character in the 1991 film ''My Girl''
* ...
'', a type of fried savoury snack. ''Pav'' is a derivative of the
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
word ''pão'', which means bread.
History
The most common theory of the vada pav's origin is that it was invented in the erstwhile mill-heartland of Central
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
.
Ashok Vaidya of
Dadar
Dadar ( ̪aːd̪əɾ is a densely populated residential and shopping neighbourhood in Mumbai. It is also a prominent railway and bus service hub with local and national connectivity.
Dadar holds the distinction of being Mumbai’s first planne ...
is often credited with starting the first vada pav stall outside
Dadar railway station
Dadar railway station is one of the major interchange railway stations of Mumbai Suburban Railway. It serves the Dadar area in Mumbai, India.
This railway station lies on both the Central line named as Dadar Central with station code DR and ...
in 1966.
Some sources credit Sudhakar Mhatre who started his business around the same time.
One of the earliest kiosks selling vada pav is said to be ''Khidki Vada Pav'', located in
Kalyan
Kalyan (Pronunciation: Help:IPA/Marathi, əljaːɳ is a city on the banks of Ulhas River in Thane district of Maharashtra state in Konkan division. It is governed by Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation. Kalyan is a subdivision (Taluka) ...
. It was started in the late 1960s by the Vaze family, who used to hand out vada pavs from a window (''Khidki'') of their house facing the road.
The
carbohydrate
In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may or ma ...
-rich snack catered to the
cotton mill
A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning (textiles), spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system.
Althou ...
workers of what was then known as
Girangaon
Girangaon (literally "mill village") was a name of an area now part of central Mumbai, India, which at one time had almost 130 textile mills, with the majority being cotton mills. The mills of Girangaon contributed significantly to the prosperi ...
. This
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...
dumpling (''batata vada'') placed inside a
''pav'' was quick to make, cheap (~10-15
paisa
Paisa (also transliterated as ''pice'', ''pesa'', ''poysha'', ''poisha'' and ''baisa'') is a monetary unit in several countries. The word is also a generalised idiom for money and wealth. In India, Nepal, and Pakistan, the ''Paisa'' currently equa ...
in 1971
[), and much convenient over the batata bhaji and ]chapati
Chapati (alternatively spelled chapatti, chappati, chapathi, or chappathi; pronounced as IAST: ), also known as ''roti'', ''rotli'', ''safati'', ''shabaati'', ''phulka'', (in East Africa) ''chapo'', (in Marathi) ''poli'', and (in the Maldives) ...
combination, which couldn't be eaten in overcrowded local trains.
Cultural importance
The closing of textile mills in central Mumbai led to turmoil in the 1970s. Shiv Sena, the homegrown party formed during this transformative time, based itself as a party with Mill workers' interests.
The party chief, Balasaheb Thackeray
Bal Thackeray (; 23 January 1926 – 17 November 2012), also known as Balasaheb Thackeray, was an Indian politician who founded the Shiv Sena, a right-wing pro-Marathi and Hindu nationalist party active mainly in the state of Maharashtra. ...
encouraged Marathi people in the 1960s to become entrepreneurs, i.e. start food stalls in ways similar to the South Indians setting up Udupi restaurants. Shiv Sena attempted to physically and ideologically claim the streets through agitations as well as neighborhood-level events such as ''Vada pav sammelan (Vada pav jamboree)''. This theme has continued even in the recent years, e.g. the 2009 introduction of ''Shiv vada pav''.
Variations and commercialization
There are over 20,000 stalls selling vada pav in Mumbai. Mumbai alone has many variations of the food based on the locality.[ Large fast food restaurant chains such as ''Kunjvihar Jumbo King'' in ]Mulund
Mulund (Pronunciation: uluɳɖ is a suburb in the north-east of Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It is also a railway station on the Central Railway line of the Mumbai Suburban Railway. It is also the first railway station of Mumbai Suburban dist ...
and Goli Vada Pav
Goli Vada Pav is an Indian fast food restaurant chain originated from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was founded in 2004 as a vada pav restaurant by Venkatesh Iyer. It currently operates in over 100 cities with over 300 stores.
History
Gol ...
also primarily serve vada pav. Outside of Mumbai, a variant of vada pav is ''pav vada'' which is famous in Nashik
Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nashik ...
.
Annually, August 23 is celebrated as ''World Vada Paav Day''.
Preparation
A boiled potato is mashed and mixed with chopped green chilli and garlic, mustard seeds, and spices (usually asafoetida
Asafoetida (; also spelled asafetida)
is the dried latex ( gum oleoresin) exuded from the rhizome or tap root of several species of ''Ferula'', perennial herbs growing tall. They are part of the celery family, Umbelliferae. Asafoetida is thou ...
and turmeric
Turmeric () is a flowering plant, ''Curcuma longa'' (), of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the rhizomes of which are used in cooking. The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asi ...
). The mass is then shaped into a ball, dipped into gram flour
Gram flour or kadala maavu is a pulse flour made from a variety of ground chickpea called Bengal gram or ''kaala chana''. It is a staple ingredient in the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent, including in Indian, Bangladeshi, Burmese, Nepali, ...
batter and deep fried. The resultant fritter is served by placing inside a bread bun, accompanied with one or more chutney
A chutney is a spread in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion or mint dipping sauce.
...
s and fried green chilli.
Gallery
See also
* Aloo tikki
* Chinese bhel
Chinese bhel is a fast food and street food item in India and is considered a part of Indo-Chinese cuisine. It is a variant of chop suey and bhelpuri. It is popular in Mumbai.
Ingredients
Like most street food items, the recipe of Chinese b ...
* List of sandwiches
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
* Veggie burger
A veggie burger is a hamburger patty that does not contain meat. It may be made from ingredients like beans, especially soybeans and tofu, nuts, grains, seeds or fungi such as mushrooms or mycoprotein.
The patties that are the essence of a veg ...
* Misal pav
* Pav bhaji
Pav bhaji (Marathi : पाव भाजी) is a fast food dish from India consisting of a thick vegetable curry (''bhaji'') served with a soft bread roll (''pav''). Its origins are in the state of Maharashtra.
History
The dish originated as ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vada pav
Indian cuisine
Maharashtrian cuisine
Street food in India
Indian fast food
Vegetarian sandwiches
Vegetarian dishes of India