One of my earliest memories of exploring food goes back to when I was barely 10 years old and my mother would take me along on her shopping escapades in New Market after school. Footpaths bustling with stalls and vendors, hawkers at their creative bests, shouting for our attention, fellow shoppers brushing past us with the brisk purpose afforded only to a seasoned shopper, and of course, the questionable aroma of food frying somewhere on the street mixed with general sweat and humidity – and amidst all of it, my mother striding on deliberately with one hand tightly clasping mine. After shopping to the point of exhaustion, buying everything from table cover to cutlery, bone china cups to fancy nightdresses – there was, inevitably, a food stop. Well not just one. We had a well-tested routine. Start with jhal muri and dahi vada, then go into Monginis for some patties, shammi kebab and to stand in the AC for a bit. Then some more street shopping, hard bargains and bunch of plastic bags, after which we would head to Aminia for our Biryani stop, and sometimes even tea time snacks at Nahoums. This routine never wavered – no matter how full we were, how tired we felt, or how long the waiting queue stretched because food, has always been essential to a shopping spree.
Needless to say, I was a 90’s kid through and through, and growing up in India in the 90’s was an exciting affair. ‘Cable TV’ was just beginning to come to households; bringing with it primetime telecasts of The Bold and The Beautiful and Baywatch. Kids were grooving to the latest pop music videos by the likes of Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and Boyzone. There was a whole new lifestyle seen in these soaps and videos, right from outfits and trends, to food and traveling. It was also a time when India had a huge influx of foreign brands, at least in the metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta. What did all these changes mean for the Indian cities? Suddenly there was a lot to catch up to with the western world in a very short time – and eventually, over the coming decade, this culture shock would change the very lifestyle of the Indian urban crowd.
Before the 90’s, eating out meant an expensive affair and was usually reserved for a grand occasion. There were clear categories of restaurants – Indian, Chinese and Continental. The outing was made into an elaborate event – putting on one’s Sunday finest, indulging in a taxi so you’re not disheveled by the time you arrive at the restaurant, booking a table and combing through the menu – trying to decide between the safe favorites or exploring something new. Stand-alone restaurants weren’t many, and usually dining with children usually meant going to a place that did not serve alcohol, which led to the options being quite limited. In our family, these “special” fine-dining events happened usually if I won prizes in school or on birthdays – in a nuclear family, there weren’t that many reasons to celebrate in style. But the go-to stops were always our favorite places in the city – Waldorf for Chinese or Mocambo for Continental. We always knew what to order, and it was comforting to soak in these classic places that had been around for years.
Then the 90’s arrived. The New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1991 opened up the Indian Economy to foreign investments, better technology and tougher competition, almost surely plunging India into a globalization arena. The Indian market began to change – and with it, the demands of the Indian middle class. More and more international brands proliferated the market. At the same time – with the newly opened economy facilitating a lot of new airline routes at budget prices – there was an increase in international as well as interstate travel. So, the 90’s middle class had money to spend, and an unprecedented exposure to cultural experiences outside of their local comfort zone. One of the most interesting effects of this could be perceived in India’s food culture – international food brands with partnerships in India had money to invest, and the restaurant business went on to become one of the highest employing sectors in the country, hiring chefs, service and cleaning staff, ushers and more. There were also well-travelled folks coming back to their homes, having experienced a taste of international food, and willing to explore different cuisines.
The 90’s also saw the first television cookery shows in India. Cookery shows at that time were not just about recipes and dishes, but a platform for people to learn about international cuisines, exotic dishes, and innovative ingredients. Some of the shows even dabbled in virtual tourism along with the food and culture. One of the first shows of this kind was Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khana Khazana, which ran for a whopping 17 years on Zee TV. Then there were Tarla Dalal, Aditya Bal, Ritu Dalmia, Kunal Kapoor and many more celebrity chefs that hosted a slew of successful TV shows, with regular spin-offs that ran in regional channels as well. This led to dishes being experimented on, at home, and food cultures becoming slowly more diverse. Exotic pastas were now being made in an Indian household, with an indigenous twist – and of course, the kids benefitted the most as the primary tasters and critics!
The palate of a country, however, is never merely defined by what gets served in the restaurants, or at home – but also by what sells on the streets.
When our grandparents and parents tell us they hardly ate junk food growing up, it’s probably true – There wasn’t much in the name of processed food back in the day. Now that’s not saying pakoras and jalebis were healthy, but at least the ingredients and sourcing made them better suited for our systems. We were never really a nation and culture of grab and go when it came to food. Eating, even in the busiest of times, and with limited income, was traditionally an elaborate and multi course affair. By the time the 90’s came around though, junk food was already a firm fixture in the Indian food scene. But it was heavily local, and mainly street side – with chaats, rolls, vada pavs, dosas, pani puris, ice pops and candies, bakery food like filo pastry with fillings called patties or puffs depending on what part of India you were in. In contrast – I remember when the first Domino’s Pizza outlet opened near my place – the thin paper menus, the aromas of dough in the oven wafting through the open kitchens and filling up the place, the hot card-board boxes piled up and taken out by the uniformed delivery folks with an unfamiliar sense of urgency. Ordering and getting food delivered quickly so we could be on our way, was a curious and fascinating novelty. And slowly, it came to be that we started saving more of our pocket money for these luxuries than spending on knick knacks and street side indulgences like phuchka and choor moor, though it was hard bargain indeed.
Snacking is inherent to our country’s food culture, and you could see that reflected in the way our festivals, shopping grounds, exhibitions and even roadside melas leave a special corner for food. Particularly, I remember the Book Fair – a grand, almost-carnivalesque affair in Bengal – an experience that grew to be as much about food as it was about the rush of new books, elaborate launches, and favourite authors. So when the new brand of fast foods came as a wave, bringing scale and efficiency to meet the cravings of an entire generation, the changes were here to stay.
The Changing Face of India’s Metro Cities and the Origin Story of Bangalore
Radhika Misra, a Marketing Communications Consultant who was finishing college during the 90’s, offered us a first-hand account of this many-fold transformation of the Indian palate.
Radhika remembers that some of the things we now take for granted growing up, like going out for ice cream – to a parlour, – was a culture that actually came to be in the 90’s decade. As a young student in Kolkata and Mumbai, hanging out in restaurants wasn’t exactly inexpensive, so for her, it was about priorities and preferences. She recalls that in those days, in Mumbai, there used to be barely any restaurant doing a street food format, (except Kailash Parbat, and that used to be a trip to take to gorge down on some delicious and variety of chaats!) But even before cosmopolitan economies revamped the food scene in the country, Mumbai was set apart by its culinary diversity. For instance, there was the flourishing world of cafes originally opened by Zoroastrian Irani immigrants to India before independence, like Britannia, Café Mondegar, Leopold Café and Bar. A good meal meant Berry Pulao, Mutton Dhansak and Sali Boti, with some traditional Irani chai to wash it down – classics that have withstood the onslaught of time and western influences. India’s sweet tooth however, had a different story to tell. Speaking about her internship with Taj Hotels in Kolkata, Radhika mentioned how desserts during the 90’s had already started adapting to western influences, taking the next step from familiar ice creams and cakes to lush, layered desserts and decadent cheesecakes.
But really, it was our conversation about Radhika’s next city of work, Bangalore that proved to be a history lesson for me. Bangalore was probably the city that changed the most in 90’s. Before this decade, most of us knew Bangalore as the garden city, a retirement haven and a defense base. Growing up, even I would often visit Bangalore in late 90’s on vacations as I had family here. During these visits, the now-familiar idea of Bangalore as a “pub city” eventually came to light for me – during stealthy escapades when my cousin would do his due diligence of showing me the city by taking me to every pub possible. Yes, let’s just say that checking IDs wasn’t much of a thing back then.
Radhika tells us how it all started in the 90’s, how this pub city I now call my home, came into existence during the decade with some popular watering holes. She fondly remembers Black Cadillac, which opened around that time as the place to be. The who’s who of Bangalore would hang out there, and sometimes have chance encounters with rock artists of the era too, visiting the city for concerts! Pub World, Windsor Pub, Pecos – all had distinct clientele, chilled beers, local food and usually good rock music. I remember first seeing ‘Happy Hours’ boards in Bangalore, and for years it remained an essential parameter to pick a place for a party. You see, fancily named cocktails weren’t really a thing back then, probably with the probable exception of Cuba Libre! And why would it, when a pint of beer was about 15 bucks?
Milestones in India’s Food culture
Although the cultural shifts spawned by economic liberalization mostly affected the cities – the 90’s remain a focal point in the evolution of India’s food history – simply because it witnessed so many milestones that have, today, become inextricably associated with our culinary culture.
Specialty Restaurants
The 90’s marked the emergence of specialty restaurants – starting with hotels, and eventually stand-alone too – that started catering to the culinary curiosities of the new-Indian middle class. Shyam Rao, Retd. Naval Officer, who was posted in Mumbai, Pune and Vizag during the decade, remembers that there were suddenly options of Indian food beyond Punjabi and Mughlai. Specialty Restaurants started by Anjan Chatterjee opened up their first outlet of Oh! Calcutta in Mumbai, 1994 – bringing Bengali cuisine outside of Bengal for the first time in a fine-dining format. Mahesh Lunch Home had been operational in Mumbai since the late 1970s, serving a simple short menu of Mangalorean food. In the early 90’s, however, they started expanding to other coastal dishes -introducing tandoori and coastal food that became a huge success; in fact, their Tawa Fry, Gassi and crab/lobster with butter pepper garlic, put Karnataka cuisine on a national and eventually global platform.
The Cola Wars
Yeh dil maange more!
There was a long list of Indian soft drinks like Citra, Gold Spot, Double Seven that had popped up in the preceding decades and were thriving, especially since Coca Cola which had made its first entry in India in the 1950s, was ousted after the implementation of the Indian Foreign Exchanges Act in 1977. The 1990s saw a re-entry of the global giant in the Indian market. And thus began the decade long feud between the two biggest cola brands – Pepsi and Coca Cola – taking not-so-subtle digs at each other, launching competitive ad campaigns – a move that captivated the public imagination and boosted sales for both brands. These companies signed some of the biggest movie celebrities for endorsements, with millions of fan following. There were televised and radio ads, hoardings, official sponsorships for Cricket World Cup and print ads to the extent that they became part of grocery lists in households – the drink you always keep handy in your refrigerator. It thus came as no surprise when local cola brands fell casualty to this intensely aggressive marketing and distribution game, eventually being acquired or driven out of the market.
Junk Food Revolution
Another game changer for the food industry were some very prominent brands that entered the Indian “junk-food market” in the 90’s, and managed to completely change the consumption trend for that generation – changes that have outlived the decade, and brands that have almost become indoctrinated in our fast-food culture.
The Indian Burger
Interestingly, McDonalds and KFC were not the first foreign burger brands in India. Wimpy’s from UK had opened up in 1982 in Delhi. There were also various Indian fast food places that had their own form of burgers, and even Bombay’s very own Vada Pav had steadily been preparing Indians for the burger revolution. Food historian Pushpesh Pant in an interview with Business Today in 2015 said that the Indian burger palate was already made, and food chains simply had to adapt to that. And adapt they did, opening the world’s first McDonald’s outlet without beef on the menu, in 1996, New Delhi. For the first time, McDonald’s offered vegetarian selections as well – a menu carefully adapted to incorporate the diversities in Indian food preferences. The pricing was also kept competitive ensuring it was affordable for the target population. The real breakthrough gimmick though, was the launch of “Happy Meals” in India (1997), that included a toy and became something of a collectible. The trend caught on rapidly, going on to be adopted by companies ranging from Milo to Lays, and has continued even to this day.
KFC also opened their first outlet in Bangalore in 1995. Interestingly they chose a non-metro city as their launch pad, but Bangalore already had a burgeoning upper middle class population, and already had a trend of families “eating out”. This was crucial, because you could open up new dining options, but spending power of the city crowd and their willingness to step out and experiment with food is how these new places would have to survive and thrive. For KFC, however, other challenges proved bigger. In Karnataka, KFC’s entry into India was protested vehemently by farmers, pointing out that the growing number of foreign fast food chains would shift the demand from essential crops to livestock, resulting in sections of society without access to affordable food. KFC eventually surfaced through these protests, and opened up several outlets in India, but didn’t quite adapt to the Indian market as much as it needed to. There were court cases about MSG levels in the chicken, and lack of vegetarian options meant that they had long ways to cover before they could gain the massive popularity they command today.
The Pizza Craze
More than burgers however, it was the pizza chains that helped overhaul the existent idea of dining. With various existing cafes and food joints already serving small-sized pizzas with vegetable toppings and Amul cheese, we were all familiar with the dish as a snack. But here were brands advertising pizza as a meal in itself, and one that you could have with family and friends! The concept itself brought a cool quotient, and the large sized pizzas topped generously with stringy mozzarella, and mind-boggling choice of toppings that spanned pages, paired with a fashionable cola and garlic bread just widely appealed to the young Indian consumers. Head to a Pizza Hut outlet, slide into the booths and you’d be surrounded by the smell of freshly baked pizza, while the piping hot skillet in which the fluffy pizza would be served made it more of an ‘experience’ than a ‘dish’. These pizzas were not really Italian, but that didn’t matter – the adoption was authentic and wildly successful.
Quick Service Restaurant
I’m lovin’ it!
Dining out for Indians, while not frequent, was a leisurely event. Ordering multi course meals, catching up on conversations, getting served course by course – always for the experience. So, of course, Quick Service Restaurant was never really an accepted format in India before the 90’s came and changed how we, as a nation, viewed the experience of dining out. With the emergence of these quick-service restaurants, customers could stand in queue, place orders off of colored photo displays behind the order counter and get plastic trays with food wrapped in paper. Quick service restaurants had heavy competition abroad, but in India, these brands could not simply set up benchmarks from existing formats that had seen success in the rest of the world – they had to completely rethink how to sell the idea in a country like India, that had been used to serving for the better part of the century, and then, to being serviced and waited upon for the last couple of decades. McDonald’s was a pioneer in the field again – being the first to be able to successfully market the concept. They realized that since their main competition was the street food vendors – who had a leg up in speed of service and pricing – simply serving a localized menu wasn’t enough, sourcing local to keep the costs down and products fresh was equally necessary. Over the years, they had several pricing cuts in order to make headway in the business. Subway, Dominos and several other brands followed their suit and thus, this new “branded affordability” that assured consumers of hygiene and food safety, slowly nudged the general populace towards the comfortably guilt-free option of “better fast food”.
Delivery
30 minutes or it’s free
Today ordering in food from restaurants, cloud kitchens and even 5 star hotels has become common, especially in the past year with COVID-19 and series of lockdowns. But the advent of deliveries happened in the 90’s, long before Food Panda and Swiggy even came to be. While most restaurants and eateries were focusing on customers dining in and creating experiences, Dominos had an enjoy-with-family-at- home positioning. They kept their outlets simple and basic, focusing mainly on takeaway and enabling efficient deliveries, – hence location was meticulously mapped and chosen for optimal delivery routes. And that’s how we could get pizza in “30 minutes or it’s free”. House parties, work meetings, late nights in the office – pizza deliveries became the norm, with easy ordering and quick deliveries.
The Café Culture
A lot can happen over coffee!
India had been forever known for its chai stalls that sold tea and cigarettes, and was usually thronged by office goers and college students. However, there were iconic Coffee Houses in Calcutta, and Bangalore that were thriving since over a century. India was also producing a lot of coffee that was majorly being exported. However, the way the western world consumed coffee was yet to become a trend in our country, mainly because of it was priced higher, and most of the domestic production was being exported. The entry of Café Coffee Day or CCD in 1996, was a radical move – using the coffee from plantations in Chikmagalur to make coffee and serve it in style. For the first time in India, there were frappes, cold coffees, lattes, cappuccino, espresso – more options than we knew, and it was addictive!
But these cafes did something more than simply popularizing coffee – they kickstarted a culture. They promised an experience and positioned themselves as connoisseurs of great quality coffee by simply curating a menu with a lot of good coffee options with prices stretched just enough to convey a sense of finery while at the same time being affordable. The new CCDs thrived on a basic but functional food menu, and above all, great ambience – bringing the concept of trendy and chic American cafes, which could be used for meetings, casual dates, catching up or even working, into the urban Indian lifestyle. Coffee was no longer simply about sipping warmth, or a caffeine boost, or even a cigarette-break accompaniment. “A lot can happen over coffee”, CCD claimed, and a lot did. South India had always been partial towards filter kaapi, so it was an extension of the love for the drink to explore more variety.
Coffee shops started popping up in every nook and corner in neighborhoods, and CCD’s expansion made way for other brands like Costa Coffee, Barista, and eventually Starbucks to enter and even thrive in this tea drinking nation’s market.
The 2000s
The last decade of the 20th century definitely left a lasting impact on food, in terms of concept, influences, consumption, expanding our horizon from what we were comfortable and familiar with, to where the world was at and going towards. Were all the changes embraced, adopted and successful? Maybe not. But entrepreneurs, chefs, businesses – all recognized the potential of food beyond just basic necessity and a source of income. And subsequent years and decades just saw this idea taken further ahead – with concept restaurants, pop-ups and promotional menus, where chefs and restaurants would try and soft launch new ideas and recipes, to test the waters.
The food shows and series that started in the 90’s became franchises in the subsequent years, when we had competitions and cook offs on television. Food graduated from being a functional aspect of our life, to an art, a skill to be honed and recognized. Masterchef’s UK version came out in 1990, though it was a much later revival and adaptation of the 2009 Masterchef Australia that had taken it to an unimaginable scale as one of the top shows in the world. It was adapted in various other countries, including India. The transformation in food began to branch out and have its effect on other cultural media as well! Continuing the trajectory, in recent years, Chef’s Table became the first original Netflix documentary series to be launched in 2015, receiving wide critical acclaim.
2000s saw the advent of gourmet food and its relatively slow adoption. But India has always been an extremely price-conscious market, so what works well in Europe might not quite take off in India or even in other parts of Asia. Now, two decades into the new century, we have many more concept restaurants and menus around vegan, gluten free, purely organic, special dietary selections, non-dairy, meat substitutes and so much more.
The ideas may have launched in the subsequent years, but looking back, it seems inevitable that most of the domino effect started in the 90’s. The 90’s were the testing grounds for what was to come – as a country, we had whet our appetite, and we were ready to try the new.
Illustration: Suman Mukherjee
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