they have been made from every kind of starch from rice to potatoes to tapioca and now of course you can buy quinoa papads innovations like this tend to cover up the fact that some traditional varieties are becoming harder to find like the striplike parsi sarias or the nests of fermented wheat noodles made in maharashtra called kurdaya while not flat like most papads they serve the same role of providing a crunchy contrast to curries and ricein theresa devasahayams study when we eat what we eat classifying crispy foods in malaysian tamil food she argues that the texture of crispy foods arouses emotions of play pleasure and delight differently from other foods because they are seen as fun rather than filling they arent taken as seriously as other foods this may be why the habit of making them at home has faded even orthodox households which are always careful to make most of their food at home were generally willing to buy papads made outsidetoday it is womens cooperatives like lijjat that famously command this market but there have always been communities who made them professionally like the socalled appala chettis from thrissur in kerala who moved to madurai district around 1950 and made it a centre for papad production professional papadmakers have driven innovations in ingredients and flavours but they now risk being swamped by the money and marketing of snackfood giants that offer an array of crispy foods that dont even need cookingsome restaurants like bombay canteen have tried showcasing papads which is welcome but sometimes it feels that the way they choose to do so offering a papad and pickle platter as free welcome dish reinforces the marginal status of papads perhaps we need to rediscover the traditional dishes made with papads like the paporer dalna made in bengal where papads are cooked with potatoes or similar gujarati dishes made by treating raw papads like a kind of pasta to eat in soupy spicy stewsthere are dishes made with crumbled papads like pappadam pazham a delectable mash of bananas sugar rice and ghee topped with crispfried papad crumbs or the paranthas stuffed with crumbled papads you can find in old delhi skilled cooks can shape papads into cups or rolls that are stuffed with spicy fillings we may no longer have the time or the terraces to make papads in summer but this should not mean ignoring the many varieties and values of such an intrinsically indian ingredient by vikram doctor et bureau published on may 5 2019 at 1027 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to