Isn’t it a bit gloomy and melancholy, that entire culinary heritage and credentials of Mumbai are now encapsulated and encapsulated in that one dish called a Vada Pao. How is it even possible that a melting pot of a city, with more diversity than a packed local train, can play such a big role in a casual snack. Don’t get me wrong, I love Batata Vadas and I love Pav, but the streets of Mumbai should be given credit for being much more tour de force than it already is.
Starting with the Bhel Puri, Sev Batata Puri, Dahi Batata Puri and Pani Puri. Yes, I know you will say at once that all these Puris are bequeathed to us from the north Indian chaat and are not originally from Mumbai; that the Batata Wada is purely Maharashtrian and the Bhel is not hence the Vada Pav is the rightful owner of the Mumbai mantle. I disagree as there is no place on earth where the Bhel Puri, Sev Batata Puri, Dahi Batata Puri and Pani Puri taste like in Mumbai. Although made by North Indian Mumbaikars, this chaat was born in Mumbai, with a Mumbai recipe, with a combination of ingredients and chutneys curated for a Mumbaikar’s palate. For example, the puffed rice in a bhel, never found in a chaat in the north, although you do find a version in the east. Just because the Bhel was not invented by a Maharashtrian from Dadar does not mean it is a lesser resident of Mumbai.
Which brings me to yet another iconic Mumbai favorite that rubs shoulders with Bhel Puri and Vada Pao, as a lover of Mumbai cuisine. The ‘Bombay Sandwich’. Naturally, the sandwich itself is an old British import. But before the British invaded India with the sandwich, we were already under the table about what the Portuguese tempted us with. Bread and potatoes. All that was left was to embrace it and adapt.
No one I know can actually date the invention of this Bombay sandwich, but it is possible that, like most street food in Mumbai, the sandwich was also manufactured to feed the many single migrant workers who came to work in the thriving mill of the city industry in the 1960s and lived without their own kitchens.
The Bombay Sandwich is purely vegetarian. I can’t fathom a non-vegetarian version of it. Originally, the sandwich was not toasted, as most sandwiches were not. Purely facing the street, the sandwich wala set up his stool with a makeshift box on top and a small work shelf. Packaged sliced bread, usually made by “Wibs” (because they made larger cuts than those made for home use), would be piled up. Even today, Wibs still makes one of the softest white sliced breads you can find. Two stainless steel cans, one with yellow salted butter, the other with green chutney made from coriander and green chiles separately, along with smaller shakers of salt and chaat masala, then a plastic squeeze bottle of pumpkin sauce, the cheaper option to tomato ketchup. The pumpkin sauce was a mass-produced unbranded sauce, light orange in color, used by many cafes and street vendors as a cheaper alternative to branded tomato ketchup, which was said to be too expensive for street food. Even today, you’ll find restaurants reluctant to put generous amounts of tomato ketchup on tables for the same reasons.
The sandwich starts out as two large slices of bread with the edges cut off, buttered on one side and slathered with chutney on the other. Which is then piled with thinly sliced boiled potato and boiled beet root, add to that sliced cucumber, rings of raw onion and juicy red tomato, sprinkled with salt and chaat masala, then cut into four or six squares depending on the size of the bread, and topped with sauce, served on waxed sheets of stale bread paper. You literally had to open your mouth to the limit to put a club sandwich like that in your mouth. It was soft, crunchy, spicy and buttery at the same time.
It didn’t take these street-side innovators much time to offer their customers a hot version. On a small coal stove, with the most ingenious metal sandwich griller, the same sandwich would be grilled in this blackened utensil, by rotating it on both sides over hot coals, until the bread was crispy from all the butter and heat. The only addition to this was cheese, which melted along the way. Again, cut into four or six squares with cheese melting on the sides, this compressed toasted sandwich is still one of my favorites. Nowadays they also sprinkle sev or bhujia on the sandwiches which I find an unnecessary embellishment and quite repulsive.
The Bombay Sandwich has undergone many spin-offs, renditions and interpretations over the years. My favorite is the Bombay Masala Sandwich. It’s the same buttery bread with chutney, filled with spiced mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes are actually the same kind of Aloo served in an Aloo-Puri or a Masala Dosa. Add cheese and anything else you can think of and roast it over hot coals. The edges of the Bombay Masala Sandwich come out slightly charred, the center crispy yet plump and juicy, the explosion hot and cheesy, the flavor spicy and rich. Together with the Bhel, the diversity, like this city’s own diversity, makes the Bombay Sandwich a real Mumbai dish.
Kunal Vijayakar is a food writer from Mumbai. He tweets @kunalvijayakar and can be followed on Instagram @kunalvijayakar. His YouTube channel is called Khaane Mein Kya Hai. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views of this publication.
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