How Mumbai became a blend of cuisines

Last week, I was on my way to Chowpatty from Dadar. My beautiful Padmini* (taxi) got stuck in a serpentine traffic jam and the driver kept talking about how, over the years, waves of people have migrated to the city.





It used to be a combination of seven islands, full of fishermen and rice farmers. After the rule of the Delhi Sultanate and Sultan of Gujarat, Bombay fell into the hands of the Portuguese.










Lucrative job offers were everywhere and help came especially from the Parsis who migrated from Persia to Gujarat in the 7th century and contributed in building the present-day Mumbai and its food culture.





The Irani Zoroastrians, who migrated from Iran much later in the 19th century and early 20th century, still stick to the Iranian food tradition.





Other than the bhelpuri, ’70s office crowd of Mumbai gave birth to its most iconic dish — vada pav, bread stuffed with spicy fried potato, with tamarind and coriander chutney and a special masala sprinkled over it.





But the city’s palate can never be complete without the Bombay duck which is but a fish called bombil (Bengali: loytta). Much loved by the British, Bombay duck rava fry is the delicacy of the city.