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Journalism of Courage
Summers scorched your happiness? Look at the sunny side. Its brought you dollops of goodness and sticky-licky fun. Pick your fix from our list of kulfi legends and ice cream secrets. Theres one for everyone
One muggy night before the monsoons,after a particularly lousy day at work,we dragged ourselves to an ice cream store at Mumbais Phoenix Mills. Disaster. The owner was in the middle of downing shutters. Thats when my friend flashed her press-card with the flair of an NYPD agent. The amused man smiled and went back to the counter.
A trickle of ice cream eatersgrown-ups,toddlers and couples happily and gratefully sauntered in after us; one even thanked this friend for her heroism. She strutted. Me,I was lost in the luscious layer of caramel and the bursts of choco-nuts. It wasnt the first and certainly not the last time when we would be possessed by ice cream desperation.
For,it can consume you at any moment this summer,this craving for your cup of indulgence. It can hit you while passing hoardings plastered with giant dollops. It can grip you when the world is blazing outside and all you want is the touch of frozen Bavarian chocolate on your tongue. You need no reason,no occasion to grab a cone. Or give in to the call of the chuski wallah at India Gate. Like 24-year-old Geetha Gokul,working with a financial research firm in Mumbai,says,I love the idea of friends just coming together,getting on bikes and going for ice cream. Its better than coffee shops or restaurants. Any,every flavour will do.
There is new mom Savitha Nambiar who keeps returning to Bangalores Corner House,never tiring of the Brown Bomb or figuring out the secret of their famous chocolate fudge. I hate it that I still havent tried out other places. But then,I havent tried out all flavours at Corner House na?8221; she says. A very long ice cream tasting spree has been planned for herself and daughter Nia over the coming years.
But if you want a reason,George W,a media professional in Mumbai,will vouch that it helps to woo the ladies. In the last many years,girlfriends are the only reason I have entered an ice-cream shop!8221; he says.
The cone,of course,has played cupid to millions,and theres a slow cure in the magical blob to everything from the writers block to heartburn. When Sanjana Natekar,27,travelled to Leeds to study,the first thing she did was go hunt for an ice cream parlour. For her,love and ice cream just melt into each other. Ive ice-creamed voraciously when I was seeing this guy,and Ive ice-creamed when things didnt work out with him. Ive beaten the pressures and the blues by rushing for an ice cream,and gone to the same place and treated myself to a honey-walnut scoop when everything has gone my way. Sometimes I think,the ice creams a constant,and the rest of my life can be sketched around it, she says.
And then there is sandwich ice cream at Mumbais K Rustoms. Its a compact ice cream slab held delicately between two wafers of biscuit. Having it without spilling a drop or getting your fingers sticky means striking the right balance between relishing the flavour and gobbling it down before it melts. Its an art, says Aditi Deulkar,27,who needed 3-4 years to master the act.
Frequented by film-stars like Nargis and Meena Kumari,and later Jeetendra,Rustoms was where adolescents stole their dates. Many return now,grown-ups soaking in the nostalgia,gushing about the unchanged taste,still guessing why Rustoms pineapple is a shade of green,not yellow,and at times wondering aloud about the girl they had wooed with one sandwich ice cream, the one they thought they would love forever.
Thats another thing about ice creams. The memories. If you didnt crave the cheap ice lollies from carts roaming your street,you must have sucked frozen multicoloured pepsi-colas from plastic pouches on the way back from school. Or you waited,with an anxious eye on the clock,fingers crossed against power cuts,for the refrigerator door to open and the perfect bucket of moms homemade ice cream to emerge. We used to take turns as kids at home. It was very hard work. It was a wooden bucket with a metal container inside. Between the two you put ice and salt,and then kept turning the metal cylinder till the liquid became solid. The best ice cream of all, says Frank Keating,a writer from Kolkata,who also remembers his mother8217;s litchi sorbet,de-seeded litchi soaked in rum and frozen in the ice tray.
And what does your ice cream say about you? Well,let me stick my neck out and say it: men have something for butterscotch. And a whole lot of women dig plain vanilla. Sona Mukherjee,a writer who lives in Bangalore,explains why vanilla is also V for versatile. You can do the most with it. You rarely ever have it plain,usually with mango or Baileys or even a sprinkling of instant coffee or even tart strawberry jam, she says. There are the choco-holics on their own trip. And those in the other camp,who tilt towards natural fruity flavours.
Possibly,the only thing disappointing about ice cream is that it melts. Ad professional Sonali Mahajan remembers her first taste of orange bar after a round of bhel and pani puri at Punes Sambhaji Park. I mustve been in kindergarten or Class I. It was an orange candy. I remember dropping some on my dress and worrying mum would yell. But then I took another lick and forgot all about it, she says. Now,thats what you call an ice cream epiphany.
KOLKATA
Gur news
If you thought Kolkata got frozen in time and communism ages ago,wed love to tell you we have a new gelato district,thank you. That spans Ballygunge Circular Road and the southern part of the city. Its now possible for the ice-cream lover to toddle from one shop to another,sampling a raspberry sorbet here and a pistachio there,comparing and contrasting and scrounging as many tastes as store policy allows. Thats a big change from a decade back,when an ice cream treat meant a long,cross-city trip to the Scoop parlour at Princep Ghat,where mummy,daddy and bachcha-ra would tuck into enormous tubs of tutti-frutti sundae and swear by the creaminess of their banana splits.
But about five years ago,Mama Mia gelato happened. Kolkata suddenly woke up to the Italian version of ice cream and realized that frozen desserts dont necessarily have to be a threat to your waistline not that we were too bothered. This summer,the gelato parlour has organised a special mango and litchi festival,where you can sample creamy alphonso sundaes and a selection of litchi,mango,watermelon and orange gelatos. Mama Mia also experiments with traditional favourites like gulab jamun and rosogolla. My pick is the mango sorbet.
But nothing can beat the nolen gur ice cream at the popular south Kolkata eatery,Bhojohori Manna,for innovation. Like the best of ice cream,its an exercise in wish fulfillment. Nolen gur date jaggery is a winter delicacy Bengalis yearn all year long for. So Siddhartha Shankar Bose of Bhojohori Manna blended its subtle,heady flavour with ice cream to create a dessert which is nothing like you have ever tasted before. We wanted to innovate with a traditional Bengali dessert. Nolen gur is a much prized commodity because its available only during winter. We decided to use the advantage of technology and make it a year-round affair, he says. At Rs 50 per serving,it makes for a gourmet delight. Nolen gur ice cream is all set to travel outside the city,thanks to 6 Ballygunge Place,the Bengali specialty chain.
_ Premankur Biswas
PUNE
A la cart
First stop on the Pune ice cream tour is mastani,a concoction as intoxicating as its name. Available at Sujata Cold Drink House,it comes in 19 flavoursthe popular ones are kesar,dry fruit and sitaphal. Mango mastani is the undisputed lord here. The thick cream dribbles over the scoops of ice cream and mango slush and is served in a generous big glass. This is one drink whose taste can linger till the next summer. At Rs 40,its a steal.
Every city has its kulfi secret and Punes is the 50-year-old Vrindavan Malai Kulfi Ice Cream Thela,off Jangli Maharaj Road. The legends on this cart of happiness are malai keshar and gulkand kulfi. The prices vary from Rs 15-25 a plate. Always crowded,nothing but the exclusive taste can get you and keep you here. Ashish Singh,a regular,tells me,Ive been coming here every day after office for years. Two things havent changed,the taste and the wait.
If street scoops are not your style,drop in at Le Meridiens coffee shop for the classic vanilla in choco dip. As the hot bitter chocolate drips on vanilla scoops,this is one melting,moment of bliss. If the ice cream pang gets hold of you at night,head for the Tulsi Malai Kulfi stand at Parihar Chowk,which has been drawing the faithfuls for 12 years. It opens at 4pm and serves customers till 1 in the morning. There are over a dozen varieties to choose from including anjir,kaju malai and mango. Kesar pista and chocolate are simply unbeatable,the sweetness just right to have you come back for a second helping. At Rs 20 a plate,this is a happy bargain.
_Tanvi Salkar
DELHI amp; CHANDIGARH
Northern nip
Before you can get to the blob of ice twinkling with kala-khatta syrup,Arshad Khan a.k.a. Pappu Bhai Chuski Wale gives you an earful. The cry is his sales pitch: chuski,chuski,chuskiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
and it never fails to lure passers-by to his stall. Because no evening stroll to India Gate,Delhi,can be complete without a stop at Shikara Lovely Chuski. Khan put up his first stall in 1986 Shahi Golden Chuski and soon renamed it Shikara Lovely Chuski after watching a show on Kashmir on TV. Now,his stall is almost like a limb that the grand structure has sprouted. Flavours run in plenty and you can do your own mix and match. We stock orange,khus,litchi,anar and elaichi but kala-khatta makes for almost 85 per cent of the sales, says Khan. There is,curiously,a CNG flavour too,a sugar-free option made with nimbu-masala. He has two stalls and 13 men to run it,all busy rolling out a brightly-coloured lolly every 30 seconds. He also has a kiosk at New Friends Colony and makes regular appearances at swish parties.
From India Gate,take the Metro down to Delhi-6,which boasts its own gigantic selection of creamy rockets and matkas filled with densely cooked milk,rolled out by kulfi-sellers who have special recipes and impressive histories. Duli Chand Naresh Gupta Kulfi Joint and Kuremal Mahavir Prasad at Sitaram Bazar,Gianijis at Church Mission Road,and Roshan ki Kulfi at Ajmal Khan Road are the best spots for a summer cooler in old Delhi. Kullhars roll out rich and creamy kulfis usually mixed with a generous dose of kesar and pista or a seasonal fruit. Gianijis moodiness with customers is legendary and Duli Chand refuses to deploy any clever sales tricks but visitors still line up for the ambrosial confectionery. In neighbouring Chandigarh,flavoured kulfis are also everyones summer cooler. The best spot is Gopal Sweets which serves kesar kulfi falooda,rabri falooda,mango and chikoo kulfis.
For the health-conscious,Delhi also has a frozen yoghurt dessert parlour,at Defence Colony market. Anything you order here,apart from the hot and cold coffees,is made with a tangy yoghurt base. The menu,listed in bold on a pink wall,gives a dozen options for frozen yoghurts Rs 30 for a small scoop and Rs 75 for a large cup that are dispensed from ice-cream vending machines and topped with a variety of toppings and syrups from the fruit counter.
But no new-fangled flavour has been able to beat the classic. For every Delhiite,hot chocolate fudge is what memories are made of. Everyone remembers the Sunday when ice cream at Nirulas was the high point of the week,when families would troop into the parlour and chatter over frozen blobs of chocolate and vanilla. The hot chocolate fudge was first sold in 1978 when Nirulas Ice Cream Parlour debuted in Connaught Place. Its still the flavour over which generations connect. Another classic gem is The Big Chill in East of Kailash,which started out as an ice cream parlour in 2000. Pastas and oven-fresh pizzas followed soon after but their scoops of luscious homemade ice cream has a stunning list of patrons.
Meher Fatma and Jagmeeta Thind Joy
RAJKOT
Taste twist
It8217;s home to the biggest ice cream manufacturers in India,Amul and Vadilal; a theory goes that the gola,that globule of ice shavings you fix to your lips and slurp,was born here. No wonder Gujarat has as many unique flavours as there are neighbourhoods. In a city like Rajkot,with a population of around 11 lakh,nearly 5,000 kg of ice cream are made every day. Over a dozen local dairies have been dishing out nearly 400 seasonal varieties for over three decades now and its old-fashioned appeal is still going strong.
Aadu,for instance,is a low-cal sinless treat,spiced with,of all things,ginger. Its available only in winter and those who have tasted this delicacy are sold forever. Chopped ginger pieces give a special taste to a cold and sweet scoop. It gives you a reason to indulge even in winter, says Hemali Thakkar,a college student. You could easily divide Rajkot into those who swear by the Shakti-Vijay outlet and those who are in the Patel camp. Aadu at Shakti-Vijay is out of this world, says Rimesh Lubna,a 38-year-old academic. It has retained its flavours and charm for years,while the attempt at modernity by some of the other chains is quite pitiful, he scoffs.
You dont have to wait till winter to gorge on ice cream though. The seasons big hit is Mango Maza,available at outlets of Patel Ice-Creams. There is also the Mango Triple Sundae,a combo of mango,pineapple and vanilla,topped with cream biscuit and mango slices.
Hiral Dave
MUMBAI
Seaside sundae
It looks like a scoop of vanilla. But you might as well be having the fleshy,sweetened inside of a tender coconut. Or the dewy pulp of a watermelon. Naturals,Juhu,is where every scoop lives up to its fruity,nutty name. Guava,chikoo,watermelon,sitaphal,and the papaya and pineapple combo are the staples of this very-Mumbai brand built by RS Kamath,who brought to the city his Manglorean deftness in hand-churned ice creams. Mango is king in summers.
Kamath often wondered why the Indian kulfi never acquired international fame,and in 1984 set about turning the juiciest fruits into ice creams. Naturals has chocolate on board too,but most of their mix-match revolves around fruits and now vegetables,like carrots. The idea of a peach-apricot flavour came from a shampoo ad,while its expansion in the coming months Delhi can expect an outlet too will see it try and attract Italian palates with the Ferrer Rocher flavour. For Mumbaikars,a post-dinner Naturals is one of those habits that dont die out,while college students find the outlets cosy,and but natural. Prices vary from Rs 28-Rs 40 a scoop.
Other Mumbai institutions include the creamy kulfi of Parsi Dairy Farm,which has been serving Mumbaikars since 1928. Rustoms,of course,is where even the plebian crowd can get their fix. The store remains doggedly democratic it started with vanilla at 20 paise,and chocolate at a princely 75 paise because you cant send back an ice cream-eater just because hes poor,says Rustom Aunty. The sandwich ice cream is a Mumbai legend and comes in kharbooza,peach and walnut crunch flavours. Prices have stayed below Rs 30 for years. For two months in summer,the staff at Rustoms has to follow an unwritten edict : Dont get hitched and dont die on us. Its ice cream season.
Shivani Naik
