Sreemanti Ghosh, 25, prefers dosa to bread and butter for breakfast, loves chicken roll for lunch, a packet of American Style Cream and Onion Lays potato crisps for a quick evening bite and Maggi for dinner. “I thrive on snacks,” the ad copywriter declares. She is not the only one. Snack, originally an in-between, is no longer a type of food “not meant to be eaten as a main meal of the day, but one that is intended rather to assuage a person’s hunger between these meals, providing a brief supply of energy for the body, or as a food item consumed between meals purely for the enjoyment of its taste”. Now, anytime is snack-time.

Off the counter

Snacking is also no longer about home-made delicacies. Neither is it jolkhabar (breakfast and something to eat during the evening). Or any of the following, which previous generations had grown up on: luchi-alurdum, paratha, kochuri, jilipi and nimki, usually home-made.

Older snacks have changed beyond recognition or disappeared. Says 54-year-old graphic designer Satyapriya Sarkar: “I miss the Bangali shingara that would have small pieces of alu and vegetables. They weren’t the samosas we get today. Chire bhaja in ghee too has disappeared from our kitchens.”

Today, the definition is broader and includes junk. “Everything, from alu-samosa to a burger can be categorised as a snack,” says Paromita Banerjee, a fashion designer who works for Anamika Khanna.

Reasons are many — lack of time, the want of necessary culinary expertise, nuclear families and a 12-hour workplace schedule. “Previously we used to have snacks during the evening. It would either be muri tossed with cucumber and chilli or ghugni prepared by ma or grandma. Now since we stay late in office, we look to grab a quick bite, something that is readily available,” adds Paromita.

Nobody has the time to invest a good two or three hours in preparing snacks for guests. “We have a lot more variety nowadays. How many people eat chanachur and muri or telebhaja and muri as snacks?” demands Deboleena Guhathakurta, an M.Phil student at Jadavpur University.

Even the good old homemade chowmien, prepared sometimes with a sprinkling of jeera and dhania, considered smart, contemporary food 10 years back, is not so visible. “I have seen my mother preparing chowmien, chop or luchi for relatives. I, however, have neither the time nor the patience to do that. I would rather get something from a neighbourhood eatery,” says Indrani Chatterjee, a 25-year-old media professional.

Glossy packet

Enter, new-age snacks in snazzy packages. A trip to the cinema hall may still be incomplete without a packet of chips, but the inexpensive, oily, but very tasty packet or even the once ubiquitous Uncle Chips have been replaced by the flavoured colourful Lays (Spanish Tomato Tango being a clear favourite), Bingo, Cheetos, nachos and Kurkure. Steamed masala corn is the rage at the plex. And the humble popcorn now comes in smart tubs and in different flavours. “Cheese popcorn is my favourite,” says Paromita. Roadside chicken and vegetable patties are being given a miss for crispy delicacies at KFC, Barista and Monginis.

Says Indranil Ain, software engineer at Infosys, now posted in Paris: “Previously, we used to get patties kept in hot boxes in just about any shop. Monginis and Kathleen have made the patty more sophisticated.”

Health factor

Hygiene rules. The seedy snack-bars have given way to upscale eateries. “People have become more health conscious. You will find Haldiram’s always full. That is because the food in there will not make you sick,” says Khadija Chowdhury, a jewellery designer.

From Chinese combo meals and North Indian foods to idli-vada and various kinds of chaats, fruit juices to sherbets and lassis — you will be spoilt for choice at these popular eateries. Park Street and Camac Street have several new chaat eateries where the roadside papri chaat and pav bhaji are being dished out with the hygiene quotient intact.

“On weekends we have a heavy footfall. Papri chaat is the most popular snack. People also ask for chhole bhature and pav bhaji a lot,” says Pankaj Poddar, director, Poddar’s Thandai Private Limited, that owns chaat.in kolkata, at 24 Camac Street.

Money money

The transition from jhal chips to KFC and Barista can be attributed to wallets bulging with disposable income or substantial pocket money. Devraj Prasad, a 26-year-old techie with IBM, remembers his liking for jhal chips — kochu bhaja with a sharp spicy taste, which soon lost its charms when its price rose a little.

Today’s youngsters do not think twice before shelling out Rs 66 for a sandwich at Cafe Coffee Day. “Friends can always pool in and go for a pizza. It is not that expensive. You just need to have 100 bucks on you,” says Sumana Chakraborty, a web content writer with Compare Infobase. Agrees Farah Gherda, a second-year mass communication student at St Xavier’s College: “We drop in at Subway quite often for sandwiches.” She, however, occasionally makes masala chips at home as it is more of a hobby for her. Some try to stick to inexpensive snacking.

Priyanka Ghosh, Farah’s classmate, loves momos at Michael’s on Camac Street that costs Rs 15 and drops in at Vien sweet shop for samosa and chai or heads to Vivekananada Park for phuchka.

Home and abroad

Living away has taken its toll on some. Says Jayita Chatterjee, a 26-year-old PhD student based in Chicago: “I have got used to Western snacks and to be honest, I love pizzas, hamburgers, pasta and salad.”

For Mekhala Roy, snacks were once all about shingara, muri makha, egg or a chicken roll. “In Bangalore, where I was posted previously, it was either a cup of coffee at CCD or cup corn or momos. Now that I am in the US, I have chicken wings, pizzas and different kinds of sandwiches. There are also healthy snacks like granola bars and cereal bars, but I am not too fond of them. I buy muri and chanachur from an Indian store so that I can have jhal muri once in a while. Maybe because I live so far away from home I have this urge at times,” she chuckles.

Paris-based Indranil misses Lajpat Nagar’s alu tikke and Ahmedabad’s vada pav most. Though he adds: “France may not have vada pav, but it has its own share of baguettes with fillings of poulet (chicken) or poisson (fish) or jambon (pork). I have to make do with this,” he smiles.

And then, “har snack namkeen nahin hota”. So we have also started to love cookies, pretzels and jellybeans. “I smear jam on biscuits and have it as a snack,” says Priyanka. Several companies have come up with sweet snacks, Cadbury Bytes being one of them. “Roasted pista, kaju and kismish are as much in demand as our dhoklas and samosas,” says Dinesh Agarwal of Bentinck Street Haldiram & Sons Bhujiawala.

So keep snacking, forget eating. Just don’t count your calories!

TOP TEN

• JHALMURI
• PHUCHKA
• BHELPURI
• PIZZA
• MOMO
• CHIPS (LAYS)
• MAGGI
• ZINGER BURGER AND CRIPSY
• FRIED CHICKEN AT KFC
• ROLL
• PAPRI CHAAT

pictures by Rashbehari Das