With carbohydrate-phobia ruling most of our with-it populace, breads are not exactly fashionable while eating out. But even as nutritionists and dieticians doling out protein-only plans urge you to pass up the bread basket each time it makes an appearance on the table with your salad, there is nothing quite as soul satisfying as breaking off a breadstick, dipping it in a blob of butter and munching on?whether or not it is succeeded by soup. If you happen to be in France this summer, you are certainly in bread heaven. If the concept of terroir (the very water and air of a place) defines the characteristics of French wines, it may be deemed responsible for the quality of their bread too: even a slice of plain white bread (with butter) in Paris is likely to taste like a gourmet meal. It did to me?whether it was actually the taste or just the romance of the city responsible for the experience is hard to say, but I did also discover while there an abiding passion for croissants?plain and chocolate.??
Others may rave about the baguette similarly, the basic, long, thin French bread that is notoriously difficult to get right (the crust must be crisp, the insides soft) in India, however much our own, no doubt competent, bakeries may try. But while the French love affair with bread is well documented, (along with Marie Antoniette?s mythical statement ??let them eat cake?, first mentioned in Rousseau?s Confessions), India also has a firm and long tradition of bread-making (and eating) that defies any modern nutritionist?s imposing, unreal diets. (A visit to Amritsar to gorge on the fluffy, thick, stuffed kulchas with your morning lassi will confirm to any gourmet that India not only has the tradition but terroir for making perfect bread!)
For a country where carbohydrates are so central to a meal, and where a large number of regions specialise in their own distinct types of breads, leavened or unleavened, it is strange how we ignore this intrinsic component of our meals altogether. Do up a party or a restaurant menu and the most neglected items on the list are definitely going to be the breads. This despite the fact that, as a country, we perhaps have more types of exotic naans, kulchas, bakarkhanis, sheermals, paranthas, pooris, luchis and, of course, rotis and phulkas (and mind you, there is a distinction to be made here) than any other country in the world, France included, for all its fancy brioche.
This fact was brought home to me recently while dining at the spanking new Baluchi at The Lalit, New Delhi. The revamped restaurant, serving authenticated, pan-Indian dishes, has become the first ever in the country to introduce to its patrons the concept of an Indian bread bar. As part of its relaunch efforts, the restaurant has now acquired a new degree of sophistication by way of a formidable wine bar. It?s by-the-glass list has to be the most coveted in the industry today (put together by my fellow columnist Magandeep Singh), offering some stellar new world wines, including those from stables like Antinori and Gaja (in Italy) besides other interesting Argentinean, Chilean, and Kiwi alternatives. Despite this, or perhaps complementing it, the most striking feature of the new restaurant is the bread bar. As you wait to be seated, you can sip on the wine of your choice and order a platter of breads from an open kitchen in front of you. Four kinds of breads are included in this platter?sheermal, kulcha, the besani missi roti and the crispy pheni parantha from Avadh. These are served with home-style dips and guests are encouraged to enjoy them with their wines?just as they would European style breads or indeed pita pockets mopping up the various dips in a mezze.
This is the first time perhaps that Indian breads have been presented as entrees (they are chargeable at The Lalit instead of coming in a complimentary bread basket) rather than as main course accompaniments at a restaurant, and the idea works quite well. Of course, the idea for a legit bread bar is hardly new and even within the Indian restaurant format these have existed previously at fashionable restaurants abroad such as Tabla in New York. But one hopes that the trend now catches on in the home country too?particularly since so many of our chefs now show signs of either experimenting or researching into new types of Indian breads.
If on one hand, you have some delicious alternatives by way of blue cheese or cheddar naans at modern Indian restaurants such as chef Manish Mehrotra?s Indian Accent and Sudha Kukreja?s Ignis, other chefs (like Dharmender Gyani at Jaypee Vasant Continental in New Delhi and Bakshish Dean at the helm of Zambar from the Litebite Foods group) are delving into regional cuisines and bringing to fore elusive recipes such as that for churchuri and dahi paranthas as well as the veechu parotta (made exactly like the north Indian roomali roti). It is high time that all these get showcased in a really fashionable bread bar.
?The writer is a food critic