A friend of mine emailed me this photograph of a mini-dosa from a desi restaurant’s lunch buffet in Davis Square:
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It’s not the size of the dosa that counts, it’s the flavour of the filling |
From a restauranteur’s perspective, this innovation makes perfect sense. You can’t serve everybody a dosa, it’s too large. And you can’t serve dosa slices either. Enter the mini-dosa, everybody gets dosaed, the restaurant has less waste, everybody goes home happy right?
And while we’re on the topic of alternadosas, how about totally American fillings like “Grilled Chicken with Goat Cheese, Spinach and Roasted Tomatoes” or “Tuna with Cilantro Chutney Dressing, Avacado, Arugala & Tomato“?
Are these reasonable innovations or travesties wrought by American commerce on the fine traditions of Madrasi South Indian cooking? In other words, is it a shanda like the bagel stick with the cream cheese inside, AKA the bagel Twinkie?
Ever toast, spread cream cheese on, and eat a bagel, and be like, damn, this is taking too long? Kraft’s Bagelfuls, essentially, a bagel Twinkie, are for you. A “Bagelful” is a frozen bagel tube with cream cheese inside. They’re kept in the refrigerator and then toasted, microwaved, or even eaten straight from the box. [Link]
How do we tell when a departure from beloved tradition is actually progress?
Maybe when Punjoos stop calling it “Madrasi” cooking.
First place I ever had a dosa was in India, in a restaurant called Madras Woodlands. They called it Madrasi cooking then. Why is it eaten across the entire region? Do all South Indians eat dosas?
Funny you should mention this. I read an article in today’s Washinton Post entitled “The Incredible Shrinking Restaurant Portion”.
That may not be exactly what you’re talking about, but it’s still interesting. 馃檪
pardon the violently oblique trajectory – but in many parts of the world, street vendors [from thailand to the philippines] are reducing portion sizes in response to rising grain prices. the picture actually represents one of the presumed root causes – the dosai, or the grain product, is increasingly a smaller portion of the diet as more people are adding non-vegetarian products to their meal.
so… i guess it wasnt a tangent after all. the pic is deep. tres deep.
If it tastes good, it’s progress.
Sure, traditional dosa is large, and large-sized dosa is the archtype.
However, more than often, dosas are made small for many reasons – one of them is the size of thawa (frying flat pan). Often, people in their homes do not have thawa to make a large dosa, and is the size of an uthapam or little larger than paratha.
That’s how my mother makes them. A bit thicker than a paper dosa and smaller. She was told this was home style. Still, how about a paper dosa the size of a green pepper slice or a drumstick?
We don’t feed the chicken grain products any more. They’re raised on a pure diet of soylent green.
Dosas are eaten across all of South India, and additionally different parts have their own modifications and interpretations, such as the Mysore Masala Dosa in Mysore (Karnataka), the Peserattu in Andhra Pradesh, and a little more distant, the adai (which has a different ratio of lentils to rice) in Kerala. You can see the different names given to this dish across various regions in India here. As you can see, it is called Dosa (or a phonetically extremely close variant of it) in all the Southern states.
When it’s breakfast to go.
well, i had the lunch buffet at chola in nyc a month or two ago… and they brought each of us a mini dosa with the usual potato and onion filling as an appetizer. i thought it was a great idea… yum yum yum!
Idli (sp?) all the way! 馃榾
ahh.. tonight i had homemade dosas..from an auntie visiting from bangalore… yummmy… beats a restaurant any day of the week….
and as for bagelfuls… looks like a twinkie… i’d rather have a pretzel stuffed with mustard 馃檪 good times.
‘Shrunken’ dosas are are pretty common in India. I’ve lived my entire life in North India, and have seen lots of street-vendors (“thele-waalas”) and roadside eateries (“dhabas”) selling such pint sized dosas. When I was a kid, I used to think that they made this baby dosa because being North Indians, they didn’t know how to make a proper dosa 馃檪 Of course, full-sized dosas are also pretty common all across the North.
Another example of a departure from beloved tradition is the rasam seafood soup. (I had never seen “rasam’ and “seafood” together in India.) I first had rasam seafood soup at the Legal Seafood restaurant and since then have reverse engineered it (quite easy) and offered to friends, who like it very much.
We’ve had a skin color post, then a dating-marriage post, now a small dosa post. what is it? ratings week?
13 脗路 Chitta said
This was an innovation waiting to happen! It’s a great idea.
Damn! I can digest baby-idlis..not these baby dosas. cry my beloved MTR mangalore dosai mix.
gappa:
Yay! dosa canapes. Dosa is really too good to not be diversified. In Brittany, France, the crepes/galettes are really just like dosa in taste and texture. I once had one with potato inside and guess what I was thinking.
rahul:
dosa::south indian snow::eskimo (inuit) I never really thought of adai and pesaruttu as dosa. Even the uttapam is not a dosa. They try but nothing beats a dosa.
Heh Heh. On the topic of innovation. I use the dose batter to make crepes for my kids and fill them with strawberries/bananas/honey/nuts and Nutella. They love it. Much better than using white flour and eggs(vegetarian mom and all that…)
Dosas at home are usually smaller than the ones served at restaurants.
I dunno if Mysore Masala Dosa is genuinely from Mysore. I remember getting puzzled looks when asking for it there.
Mini dosas are crisper, just the way I like ’em. Plus, it’s the buffet. Get over it. 馃槢
I’ll have to occupy the contrarian couch this time and say I’d really like to quote Triumph the Comic Insult Dog on this one, “These little dosas are nice…for me to poop on!”
Perhaps it’s just because the only time I eat dosa it’s a big event (family meal, going out to eat), but I can’t envision myself eating an amount not guaranteed to give my stomach pause.
It’s not the size that counts, it’s what it comes with. And whoever bought that plate is getting ROBBED.
One emaciated chicken leg and cross-sections of capsicum and cucumber don’t even begin to compare to three varieties of chutney (tomato, coconut, and onion, if you please) and sambar!
I think its from a place called Udipi in Karnataka, South Indian restaurants in Mumbai are called Udipi restuarants.
22 脗路 ptr_vivek said
Since it was a buffet, the accompaniments were probably chosen by the diner… Maybe there was potato inside it.
That’s easy. If it becomes a hit, it is progress. If it fails, it was somebody’s stupid idea.
The first time I heard of and ate dosa was probably in the mid-Sixties when it was just starting to catch on in North India. Back then, even Connaught Place in Delhi had only one dosa outlet – Madras Coffee House on the second floor. It wasn’t more than a few years after its first appearance in North India that dosas took the region by storm. It was the most sensible thing to eat when you had exactly two bucks (and I do mean rupees) in your pocket and somehow had to manage both a lunch and a bus ride.
One of my happiest memories of growing up in India was when our dad would take us all to our local dosa place, Bharat Coffee House, on Sunday mornings for some quality family time and equally high quality dosas, idlis and wadas. The meal would be followed by “pulled” coffee served in stainless steel glasses, and despite our tender age, he would allow us the occasional glass of caffeine.
Dosas in those days, though not quite as snack-size as in Ennis’s post, were still fairly small. I remember we always ate idli and wada to round off a dosa meal. The gigantic dosas were a much later innovation, when restaurant owners began to understand the in-store marketing value of eye appeal. Who says supersizing is a peculiarly American phenomenon?
It is still possible to find chapati size dosas in South India. It is no different than finding small, unassuming pizzas in Italy. When it is your native cuisine, you serve it every which way. Let others supersize and glorify it.
Good post, Ennis. Thanks for starting my Monday morning with a walk down the memory “gulley” of India in search of the perfect dosa.
24 脗路 Gargoyle said
Righto. Well that’ll teach me to finish my coffee before reading anything in the morning.
Hampton Chutney Co. = travesty wrought by American commerce. Saravanaa Bhavan = saving grace of globalization.
Sizes of almost all prepared foods are shrinking, thanks to the high commodity prices around the world.
Let’s consider the ingredients of masala dosa:
Rice: Up 60% in the last couple of years. Some riots in poor countries. Many countries (incl. India) have banned export of Rice in 2008. Urad(?) Dal: Up 70% Potatoes: Up 30% Onions: Up 100% Oil: Up 30% Cooking gas: Up 25%
What’s a restaurant owner to do? Raise prices by ~40% and risk losing customers, or shrink size by 40% and invent new ways/names of marketing it?
M. Nam
What’s in a name right? Bigsize or Smallsize, if you are ever in Gujarat don’s ask for “Dosa’. They will bring you an old man. In Gujarati they are called “Dhonsaa”. Believe it or not, Abhi likes it with ‘ketchup and sour cream’. Speaking about “Madrasi’ Vs. “South Asian”, I bet even now most Gujaratis think anyone from South or Southeast of Bombay is a “Madrasi”. I kid you not.
29 脗路 Yo Dad said
In or out of context, this will not help Abhi’s dating prospects.
Sigh, you have made this pregnant woman crave for a masala dosai right now! I will have to wait until Sunday, to get a fine sample from the local temple. 馃檪 (food that I myself make no longer looks appetizing or is edible).
Reg Madrasi – yes, anyone south of the Vindhyas is considered a Madarasi….what I don’t like is the condescending tone associated with “Are you a Madarasi?”. Also, people from the North do not seem to realize that that there are FOUR states in the south, each quite different from the other!
that size is not that uncommon!
it totally depends on the size of the thava– that’s how we have them at home, about as big as the length of the plate with lots of alugade-iruli palya (potatoes and onions) and chutney. it makes seconds or thirds not so guilt-inducing.
yeaaahh kannadigas!! that dosa (and in colloquial kannada we pronounce it “do-say,” or at least in my house)picture is now making me hungry 3000 mi from home.
As the photographer and consumer of the mini-dosa in question, let me set a couple of facts straight:
On the opinion side, I will weigh in as in favor of both mini-dosas and mini-bagels for more or less the same reason: better ratio of yummy outer layer (crepe or crust) to doughy/mushy innner filling. It’s like preferring skinny fries to thicker ones – you get more fried surface area per unit of potato.
Happy Vasakhi everybody.
Let me come to Abhi’s rescue by quoting the last sentence of this comment.
The rise of commodity prices is largely due to the STUPID ethenol policy put in by Dubya. I mean is that anything that this government can do right? They have completely messed up the agricultural market of the whole world by this stupid ethenol idea.
This is the main reason why I am hoping that the Dems come into power in ’09. People are literally starving to death due to the stupid policy of this government.
I know that the ethanol policy is a contributing factor, but I don’t know how much is due to that alone. There have been droughts for several years in Australia, for example, and increased demand from China and India. I haven’t seen an analysis that talks about the relative weight of different factors though.
Sadly, ethanol policy has widespread support – it is a huge subsidy to farmers and it keeps various energy factions happy on the left and the right.
Australian drought (and Ukrainian shortfall) is a contributing factor in wheat problems, but if you just look at the acerage that are planting corn now as opposed to before the stupid policy of ethenol, you will see a rise of almost 30 to 40% (not totally sure about exact numbers, but what I am saying is a conservative estimate). The extra production of corn has caused prices of Potash and other fertilizers to more than double.
Dubya himself admitted recently about rising food prices, but I dont think any change is possible until the leadership in whitehouse changes.
This is EXTREMELY serious situation, people have started rioting in poor nations for food.As reported situation in Pakistan and case of food riot in Yemen . I read reports of starvation deaths increasing in India also.
RC: >>The rise of commodity prices is largely due to the STUPID ethenol policy put in by Dubya..completely messed up the agricultural market of the whole world
The Ethanol scam is responsible for the high corn prices in North America (+200%), but it cannot be attributed to high rice prices in Vietnam.
Two things which have caused high commodity prices:
Fiat currency freed from Gold standard: US has to print a ton of dollars (the currency in which commodity prices are quoted around the world) to sneak out of the excessive debt as well as to pay for the entitlement programs created by previous administrations (like Social Security, Medicare etc etc). This forces other countries to print more of their currencies. More paper money chasing fewer (point #2) commodities = higher prices.
Standard of living in China, India, and most of Asia, Latin America is shooting up. They are consuming more nutritional food with their discretionary income. An extra billion strong middle class wants McMansions, McDonalds and two-car garages. All in a span of six or seven years.
Honey, the economy shrunk the dosa.
M. Nam
Please tell me you didn’t, on this oh-so-erudite, prejudice-aware, worldly wise, culturally sensitive blog, use the word “Madrasi”? Please? I don’t want to kill any more.
Hi, Dosa is dosa it goes well with SAMBAR& CHETNI nothing else mind you I am not a madrasi http://www.material-spirutial.info
Right, over use of gas in big SUVs driving 60 miles a day is definitely not part of the problem.
I feel like I’ve had small dosai in Karnataka before. The pictured ones seem 2-bite sized, those were probably four. I think it’s a good idea for an appetizer.
In Maharashtra-Konkan, the unfermented but related food is called dhirdee/ghavan/ambolee.
There are Udipi restaurants all over western India that used to serve strictly the dosa, the vada, the idli. But recently, i sadly noticed a lot of varation . Pizza, sandwiches, paneer bhurji, it reminds of me of diner menus. All permutations and combinations. Oh! And those ac-mezannine sections that remind of “being john malkovich”. I remember eating my first dosa because we were trying to mask the smell of cigarettes. Being catlick and all, i could not believe that this dish cooked and served cheap in a chaotic place (think jangling thalis, paper thin aluminum silver,smoke, incense) 50 yards from my home could taste so exotic (ok i said it).
Is food from TN not known as Madrasi? I don’t use it as a generic term, but I’ve only ever eaten dosas at restaurants that were very explicitly linked to TN. My first dosa, back when we had to drive a long way to find one, was at a Madras Woodlands in Delhi. Later I used to eat at Madras Mahal in NYC. Etc. Can the word not be used in a narrow sense at all? I crossed it out b/c it was getting objections, but I had thought as long as it wasn’t used as a catch all phase, it was OK. And until these comments, I hadn’t realized that dosas are served across South India as a whole.
Manvantara :
The current generation doesn’t use the word ‘Madarasi’ anymore. I guess the exodus of young people to work in the IT sector (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mysore) has something to do with it. On the flip side, I’ve heard a lot of South Indians use the word “Punjabi” or “Punjus” when talking about North Indians in general. UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Himachal, Harayana, Jammu-Kashmir etc are all clubbed together !
that dosa looks only slightly small (and maybe not even, depending on the household) for a homemade dosa. i’m not a big fan of the large paper dosas – too crispy to eat w/ chutney/sambar, and they always get cold by the time you even make it halfway through the dosa. i def. prefer the homemade variety – fresher and you can have more alternatives – e.g. my favourite, godhumai (wheat) dosai 馃檪
Re:#44: Is food from TN not known as Madrasi?
No, food from TN is known as “Tamil food” or “Tamizh food”. 馃檪 As I mentioned earlier, “Madarasi” is the term that North Indians (anyone north of the Vindhyas) give South Indians (anyone south of the Vindhyas). Also, the term always had a condescending tone whenever I heard it from someone in the North. I think it is this condescending tone that irritates the heck out of us south Indians whenever we hear the term!
Back when I was doing my M.S. at a university in the mid-west, there was one weekend when the Indian Students Association was going to screen a movie – a Hindi movie and I asked if it had subtitles, which surprised everyone, since desis assumed that EVERYone knows and understands Hindi. I can read, write, understand but have not been exposed to movies and miss out the little dialogues/jokes. There was this one person from Orissa who could not believe that I did not know Hindi and kept asking me about it and then, when she said: “None of you Madarasis know any Hindi, then?” really annoyed me!
My husband has a different story to tell – he is from Bangalore and has a last name that does not betray where he is from. On his very first job, (he was a software salesman), he had to go to Delhi, to meet some government officials. He had taken out a group to dinner and the topic was about their seniors/bosses, and the complaints he heard was about how “the Madarasis come here and take away our jobs”! 馃檪
Ennis – People from my parents’ generation typically use the word “Madrasi” when referring to anyone from TN, Andhra, Karnataka or Kerala, but this is increasingly rarer these days. IMO, (one of the) reason for this is the map of pre-partion India, where the Madras Presidency (together with Hyderabad) covered the whole of South India. http://scnc.ukzn.ac.za/doc/SHIP/MAP.html
Reg #45: On the flip side, I’ve heard a lot of South Indians use the word “Punjabi” or “Punjus” when talking about North Indians in general. UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Himachal, Harayana, Jammu-Kashmir etc are all clubbed together !
Oh no, we south Indians know ALL about the North! Teeheehee! 馃榾
Seriously, though, I have heard my friends only say “North Indian” or “Northie” while referring to someone from the North. (and I must note here – for us, anyone outside the four southern states is a north Indian and so I was surprised to hear about riots in Bombay against the “North Indians” — poor people from Bihar, for instance).
49 脗路 Manvantara said
I agree. I have never heard the term Punjabi for North Indians. At least in TN.