From my experience in India, I felt that there was no fear of ever being hungry, simply by the huge amount of incredible street food everywhere. Eating street food in India is so common for locals because of the vast range that can be found.
Panipuri
This is the funnest Indian snack. They are called Panipuri, which are small and crispy fried spheres (puri) filled with a salad of potatoes, chickpeas, onion and sprouted lentils. Then a sauce with tamarind and lemon juice. These are best eaten in one go in order to not spill it everywhere!
Puri seller
This street food is what I spent most of my time calling a salad, but it is in fact very different. Perhaps because there are fried foods involved...This is called bhelpuri, it is a selection of chopped vegetables, chickpeas and tomatoes with fried puffed rice, as you can see from the photo above.
'Bhadang' is garnished with onions, coriander and lemon juice. Simply fresh and delicious!
This is called Puri as well. However it is a giant size of the mini filled puri, and this is a large fried bread. It is unleavened bread, however when deep fried in either ghee or vegetable oil, it puffs up like a round ball since the moisture in the dough (made with wheat flour and salt) changes into steam and expands in all directions. Give this bread about 5 seconds and it is flat again! It is often eaten for breakfast with dal or korma or other sauce based delicacies.
I filmed this video in Thirupati, a pilgrimage city located in the hill town of Tirumala. It is known for the Venkateswara Swamy Temple, dedicated to Lord Venkateswara. Tirupati is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the world, visited by approximately 60,000 pilgrims a day, one of which you can see buying a tasty snack from the street vendor in the video. You can understand the necessity for a wide range of street food vendors here!
Thanks for reading!
Photos by Abigail Scheuer and Jacopo Primus, with special thanks.
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