How decades of street food diet increased my immunity
Sir, do you want a normal spoon or plastic spoon?’
A mundane decision has never conflicted me so. I was having street food in my hometown Bhubaneswar. I had to choose between the metal spoons being washed in highly unquestionable methods a few feet from
me, and plastic spoons that are terrible for the planet. What is one to do in such circumstances?
Have you ever had pani-puri at a five-star hotel? For some reason, the taste just isn’t the same. Despite a professional chef, good ingredients, and the freshly prepared dish – the taste doesn’t match up! In spite of being a Commerce student, I have a scientific theory about this phenomenon. I believe the delicious taste in street food comes from the abundance of germs!
In Odisha (or at least in my hometown, Bhubaneswar), street food is considered staple food, not an occasional indulgence. It’s common to see families sending off a younger member to pick up some ‘tiffin’ for breakfast. For lunch, the unique local dish, Aludam Dahibara (where dahivada and alu curry come together for a one-afternoon-stand), is preferred. In the evening, pani puri adopts the local name, Gup Chup, and strolls the streets. The night is then rounded off with some baras and alu chops from neighbourhood stalls.
The vendors of street food in Bhubaneswar enjoy underground celebrity status among the locals. Some of the stalls have witnessed generations of the same family visit their shop. These are vendors who haven’t jumped on to the Swiggy/Zomato bandwagon yet. For, how can you assure 30-minute delivery when your shop runs out of stock in a couple of hours?
For someone who hasn’t grown up in the city, the sight could be ghastly. There are flies flying around like it’s an annual cultural meet. Dogs and cows pretend to be busy around the stall, waiting for a kind animal-lover to throw them some leftovers. The metal plates and spoons are washed in a bucket of water, with techniques that would give the good gentlemen in Dettol and Harpic a heart-stroke. Kids playing nearby will take a break and gobble down pani puri before rushing back to their match. The vendor himself will sometimes take a break, tend to an itch on his neck, and promptly get back to business. There is dust blowing around freely, and on rainy days, the tarpaulin cover will drop droplets of water into your plate. But the locals couldn’t care less!
‘So…do you want a metal or plastic spoon?’ the vendor asked me again, shaking me from my reverie. The world is already suffering from a plastic overload – I chose to be the bigger person. ‘Give me the regular metal spoon’, I said, bravely. The man picked up a metal spoon from the bucket, washed it in water, and gave it to me. My Street Food Immunity theory goes on to state that decades of consuming unhygienic street-food has resulted in increased immunity levels in my body.
After the initial panic of the first few weeks, Yours Truly has made his peace with coronavirus. If it is destined to get me, it will. But this is all I have to say to coronavirus – you’ll have to fight your way into my system. You’ll have to defeat the regular viruses for cough, cold, malaria, diarrhoea, and fever. And then, if you manage to make you way in – well, you earned it! Om shanti!
Hriday Ranjan Writer, comedian