Apple CEO Tim Cooke with Madhuri Dixit-Nene (Photo: @tim_cook)
Seeing a picture of Apple CEO Tim Cook eat a Vada Pav with Madhuri Dixit I was reminded of what I used to say in the 1980s during my stint in Bombay. As long as they come with potatoes, I can even eat rocks. The world's three most versatile food ingredients are Besan, potatoes and salt.
As a young journalist (I began my career in Bombay as a barely 21-year-old) walking the streets of the city in a manner of speaking, I discovered Vada Pav without trying. It is ubiquitous. The very first bite into it sometime in early 1982 on Dalal Street where the Free Press Journal office used to be and I was hooked for life. I ate one and then immediately ate another. Since then I have a rule about Vada Pav. I never eat one. It has to be two.
I am a Vada Pav purist. It must not contain anything other a Vada and red lasun (garlic and paprika) powder pressed between a pav. Anything else, including a green chutney, is sacrilege to me. These days they stuff everything with in Vada Pav, including shredded cheese. Yuck! Someday soon they may even shove in Laddoos, Mohan Thals and Shrikhand.
There is no chance that the Apple billionaire (Cook's worth is said to be $1.8 billion) knows or would have been told by Madhuri that what he ate is completely working class food of hundreds of thousands of Mumbai inhabitants who often survive on that as their daily food staple. During my life in the 1980s a Vada Pav used to cost anywhere between a buck and a buck and a half. I remember eating a few times for 50 paise a Vada Pav. I do not know what it costs now but whatever it may cost I am reasonably certain that both Cook and Dixit-Nene can afford it without breaking their banks.
I noticed that the two ate at Swati, which began its operations in my hometown of Ahmedabad originally and became a rage because of its excellent quality food cooked with high hygiene standards. That said, eating at Swati does not count as an authentic Mumbai street Vada Pav experience. Of course, I cannot imagine Tim Cook standing at Ashok Vada Pav in Dadar and wolfing down.
Vada Pav is remarkable food by any measure. It embodies the Mumbai street unlike any other food with the possible exception of the Bombay Sandwich, which too, incidentally, I have to eat two at a time. No matter what anyone says I cannot accept claims that Mumbai street quality Vada Pavs can be made at home. So please stop trying.