The delicious journey which began from Amritsar, Punjab, the Grand Trunk culinary journey is back with scrumptious food from the spiritual capital of India– Banaras or Varanasi. The journey travels through the 2500 kilometers of Grand Trunk Road (NH-1) offering authentic dishes indigenous to the various stops it makes along its way.
This is a festival unique in its own way, with chef Ashwani Kumar Singh going out of his comfort zone and travelling to the cities, trying out the dishes himself, researching and preparing the dishes after months of practice for all the foodies out there.
This time, it’s Banaras and all the local flavours have been brought alive by the chef in Delhi’s The Leela Ambience Convention Hotel. The festival offers many delicacies to devour on from Banaras.
The street food includes refreshing thandai, spicy tamatar ki chat, creamy chenna dahi vada and chudda matar made with aromatic heeng as starters which are some of the favorite snacks in Banaras. The startes are followed by Nashta or Kaleva in Banaras offering chhoti and badi kachori complimented by jalebi.
On the occasion, Executive Chef Rohit Tokhi explained how and when several dishes are consumed in Banaras. He said, “Chenna dahi vada is a unique thing from Banaras and is available only at a few shops. I personally loved the street food like tamatar ki chaat, dahi vadas and litti chokha.”
The Varanasi food delicacies did not end here, what follows are mouth-watering Litti served with three types of chokha and chutney for vegetarians and mutton curry for non-vegetarians, Dum aloo Banarasi, Tarua, Nimona, baigan kalonji, Paneer butter masala, Kadi bari, hare channe ka bhabhra, chilli chicken, boti and gutwa kebab.
With such overwhelming and flavoursome food, Chef Ashwani Kumar shared his experience in Banaras. He said, “I had an amazing time in Banaras as the city is close to me. The food of Banaras is influenced by its people, there are Marwari traders and people from nearby states such as Bihar and Bengal who have slowly dissolved within the Banarasi culture and have given their own blend to the food in the city.”
He further added, “The food is divided into 3 parts for an entire day- one is Kaleva i.e. Breakfast which usually includes home-cooked cuisines and kachor is stuffed with home-made garam masala and potatoes; in the evening, tamatar ki chaat and chenna/udad dal dahi vada dominates all other dishes; the night cuisine is almost same as the evening. Also, there are some Mughal hotels in the city which are highly influenced by the Awadh culture.”
When asked about the people and food connection in Banaras, he said, “People in Banaras are very naughty, completely opposite from the people in Lucknow and hence their food is sweet and spicy.”
The journey has fulfilled its duty of bringing food from various cities and hotels to just one place for people as it is almost impossible for many to travel to every hotel and stall in a city.
The Grand Trunk Culinary journey will end in Kolkata and along with it the journey of food will also end for the foodies.