Pani Puri, nay, Gol Gappe are the soul of Delhi – any street food is. And so, we take it with all seriousness. Also, some things are better unchanged – most times, comfort comes from mundanity. My point is, we do not want fusions of good old street food that we love, and have grown up eating. It’s time that people realize this!

Gol Gappe/Pani Puri
Adobe Stock

A Twitter user shared scenes from an episode of MasterChef Australia where a contestant changed the recipe of ‘Pani Puri’. The sacred street food has a filling of water, and some other elements including aloo and chana. This varies from state to state, much like the name. And that’s fine. But no version of Gol Gappe included elements like avocado.

MasterChef
Twitter

The contestant decided to fill it with “surprising flavours” like salmon roe and avocado. The problem (personal) with these fillings is that changing them at all, would change the dish altogether. Now, if there’s avocado in it, it’s not a gol gappa, is it? It could surely taste great, but let’s just not call it pani puri.

Twitter

Of course, it didn’t sit well with people on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/iwantbraincells/status/1672102982819938304
https://twitter.com/MrAbhi_shek/status/1671892473323610112

If food could speak, would food like it? Think about that.