The Street Food Project

Street food has always been a huge part of Indian culture – we (Indians) grew up eating tikki, pani poori, bread pakore etc. on a regular basis. It’s an affordable source of delicious food for the lower and upper middle class of the country. You will notice that a lot of this food is fried – which is a good thing, because when food is produced at a large scale its quality is often compromised. This is when frying the food makes sure that it’s free of any bacteria. The food that is not fried like bhel puri, fruit chaat, bhutta, chowmein etc. is made in front of your eyes with fresh ingredients. The food is prepared in a very artistic and a rhythmic manner, a pure delight to watch.

What fascinate me are the proficiency & the speed with which these food items are prepared. Of course there is some prep work done before hand but it only takes the vendors less than 3 minutes to prepare and assemble the dish – no matter how simple or complicated. It is a bit of a challenge to capture their process as they move so fast. Through The Street Food Project I am trying to document these food items with my photography and videos to bring you the magnificent food from different parts and streets of India.

A street food dish from a road side vendor costs somewhere between Rs.30 to Rs.50 - which is less than a dollar (American). Whats not to love about something that’s fresh, flavorful, affordable and delivered to you in less than 5 minutes?!Surprisingly in 2007, a law was passed by the Indian Government to ban the road side street food preparations so that they could clean up the capital city. Personally, I have seen a decline in the street food vendors over a period of time. With more vendors moving indoors in an air-conditioned environment so that they can claim to be more hygienic and attract more customers - street food sadly is bound to diminish from the “modern India”. For this reason and many others I aim to capture and document this art NOW. As and when I travel I will try to feature various food items that are made in different parts of India. It will be an ongoing process and I invite you to be a part of it with me….so let the journey begin!

Video Archive

Poori Bhaji
Grilled corn-on-the-cob {Bhutta}