US Foreign Policy, the Flaky Flatbread Called Parotta, and Where Does Asafoetida Fit?

Back to Malabar Parotta, which as I said in my last post was new to me but which I learn is thriving as a street food and Indian processed food.  There were lots of interesting comments.

Stanford Chiou sent along a fascinating piece about different groups from the Middle East to Southeast Asia who serve flaky wheat flatbreads in their restaurants in Queens, New York. When he publishes it, I hope to link to it.

Then this morning Vikram Doctor, who writes an always-interesting food column for the Times of India, contributed his musings about the connections with US Public Law 480 or Food for Peace which increased the use of white wheat flour in so many parts of the world.

Rachel, one part of the history of Malabar Parotta which will interest you is that its an example of the kind of foods that became widespread in Kerala thanks to the American food aid that arrived in India under the PL480 scheme, which brought wheat grown not all that far away (relatively) from Texas.

The history of this flaky flatbread isn’t clear at all. As you’ve noted, its a street food, not a home food, and generally made by men rather than women – that lavish use of oil would strain household budgets.

Similar flaky breads are made in Malaysia, so perhaps it came from there, but I wonder about a Central Asian link. Its very similar to flaky flatbreads made in the Turkic cultures and a connection is not impossible.

Not just because of a common link with Islam, but a food one too in the pungent form of asafoetida. The travels of this spice are really fascinating, since its produced in a fairly small area in Central Asia, but went from there to Southern India, where its key to vegetarian Tamil Brahmin food, to Europe, where it was used in medicines as devils dung and even to the US, where it was a folk remedy in African American communities I think.

Asafoetida’s spread required trade network and its possible that the knowledge of making flaky flatbreads spread with them. And it probably predated PL480, since there was wheat consumption in southern India (Goa, for example), but it wasn’t widespread.

But Partition took the major part of the wheat producing areas in Punjab away from India (though bringing tandoori food in the other part of your meal) and the crop failures in the 1960s reduced wheat production even further.

This is when PL480 happened, and there’s been a fair amount written about the complexities and problems with American food aid. But I think a focused book could be written (or has it already been done?) on how US food aid has changed local food culture.

This writer has a good post on some of the consequences of PL480:

https://maddy06.blogspot.com/2009/06/grain-for-books.html

The thing that’s not often mentioned – but will come as no surprise to you – is that while the wheat may have saved people from starving, they still didn’t like it very much. It was the sort of high gluten wheat that doesn’t work well for very plain Indian chapatis – there are memories of people cribbing about the cardboard like chapatis that resulted.

Here again one can see how something like Malabar parotas would have worked (and been more readily accepted by a primarily rice eating community in Kerala that didn’t have preconceptions of chapatis and other local flatbreads to compare it to). All that fat helps get around the hardness of the wheat.

The fat also helps it freeze well, and its one reason these are popular in supermarkets. Chapatis by contrast have to be made fresh. Next time you see them pick up some extra and use them torn up and toasted on a skillet and then scrambled with eggs for the absolutely delicious dish I describe in this column:

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/leftover-magic-making-of-kothu-parothas/articleshow/5846775.cms

Thanks to everyone who contributed.

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