Gobi Manchurian & the Indian Hakka Story

Ragini Kashyap finds that the food of the Tibetan and Indian-Chinese communities in India tell unique stories of their diaspora, and that their influence on Indian food culture runs deeper than our geo-political fissures. 

With a border stretching over 3000 kilometres, India and China have long shared a symbiotic, if fraught, relationship, dating back to 206 BCE. There has been a direct channel between the two countries for centuries, transporting spirituality, people and goods across borders. Today, even though India’s perception of China is tainted by geo-political tensions and cultural mistrust, a plate of ‘Indo-Chinese’ gobi manchurian is still easily found almost anywhere in India, a symbol of the longstanding relationship between these two ancient cultures. Food is often the unwritten relationship between people, silently witness to a parallel history than the ones documented in textbooks.

Chinese immigrants have been part of the very fabric of India since the 1700s — as tea plantation workers for the East India Company, as tanners and business owners in Kolkata. The most well-known Chinese immigrant, Tong Atchew, a sugar mill owner, is a demigod with a town — Achipur — named after him, in West Bengal. By the 1940’s, there were notable Chinese communities in Assam, Kolkata, Mumbai, Karachi and Sri Lanka.

Inevitably, there was an organic cultural exchange between China and India. Though you can still find sticky pork buns in the lanes of Tangra bazar in Kolkata, you’d be hard pressed to find them in any of the street food markets of New Delhi or Mumbai. The Indian-Chinese did not find acceptance for their traditional foods, and had to adapt to the Indian palette. What resulted, was essentially a mishmash of Indian and Chinese ingredients to form new cuisine: ‘Indo-Chinese’ or Indian ‘Hakka’. This adaptation was a roaring success, and Indo-Chinese restaurants became the most popular of all Indo-Chinese businesses — feeding tannery workers, movie stars, British and Indian societal elites and, ultimately, the whole country.

In the late 1950’s, thousands of Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama to India, seeking refuge from Chinese occupation. Many of them, escaping years of starvation, both physical and cultural, were desperate to reclaim their food and language in India. When you have left your homeland behind, out of choice or necessity, food becomes an anchor you, grounding you one meal at a time, in your new country. The Tibetans brought with them that most beloved of comfort foods, the momo.

“..the momo that is cooked and eaten by the Tibetan community in India brings back [ ] memories of a lost land. It also evokes a sense of pride in their origins, their customs and their practices. Most importantly, it reminds them of who they are and gives them back their sense of identity which they have otherwise lost. The momo is sustenance of the body, but also of the mind and soul.”

— Dr. Nazneen Marshall, Food and Representation: Culinary Delights and Dumpling Transformation, in the Picture Book Tsomo and the Momo.

Momos and gobi manchurian are now obvious contenders for street food stall, and restaurant menus, across India. Though neither is traditionally Indian, they are available more readily throughout the country than many traditional, regional Indian foods. They look and taste uniquely Indian with a smattering of coriander here, and a bit tandoori marinade there. This ‘Indianisation’ of Chinese food was perhaps the most permanent Indian-Chinese cultural influence on India, outlasting even the community itself. Their bold flavours have gained widespread popularity, but Chinese and Tibetan immigrants remain marginalised within India.

Never was the marginalisation of Chinese immigrants more blatant than during the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Suddenly, the hyphen between Indian and Chinese was no longer an innocent marker of identity; instead it carried dark hints of accusation — a potential spy for the Chinese government? The fact that several Indian-Chinese families had been in India for generations, that many wore sarees, or celebrated Diwali and prayed to Kali Ma — none of it seemed to matter. Thousands of Indian-Chinese were imprisoned at Deoli, an internment camp in Rajasthan, for up to six years. I won’t dwell here on the treatment of people in these camps, but rather, encourage you to imagine six years in a foreign land with no access to familiar foods, flavours or comfort. Even the British Raj understood the importance of food, and would allow all subjects, indentured labourers, and tea plantation workers, to eat foods that were local to them, cleverly ensuring they remained loyal and hardworking. By contrast, the food at the Deoli camp consisted primarily of gruel, rice, potatoes and gourd. Ironically, it was food, the Indian-Chinese community’s biggest pop-culture influence on India, that became the source of painful memory:

“My identity card number is 880. My father [was] one number before me - 879.  For five and a half years I ate [potato and bottle gourd] only. I don’t want to smell them, even today”

— Monica Liu as interviewed by the BBC.

Sadly, even after they were released, there was little relief. Internees were forced to make a difficult decision: either stay in India under the watchful eye of the government in Kolkata, or leave the country they'd lived in for generations. While a handful were able to recover their lives, the majority of Indian-Chinese were either forcefully sent back China, and some emigrated to the West. The largest Indo-Chinese community now lives in Toronto, Canada.

“...my own maternal uncle [] left India - they were carpenters, they used to work in strategic places, like docks and airports, [but] immediately after that war, [] they didn’t have any more work, so they left...”

— Daniel Lee, as interviewed by Bonnerjee J.J.

History and cuisine evolve with one another, and the ability to create food is the ability to write your story. But in India, the popular story of Chinese and Tibetan foods are poor markers for the story of the people themselves. Despite their ubiquitous popularity, (sparking creative spinoffs like Schezwan Dosa, franchises like Wok Express, or national brands like Ching’s), Indo-Chinese food has not bridged the gap between India and China. The community has dwindled, and only a small minority now remains in India.

“[In India] even those from the North-East are discriminated against. Here, the Chinese people feel unsafe because history has a bad way of repeating itself. There is a long mistrust between Indians and Chinese, [which creates insecurity]”

— Liu Chuen Chen as interviewed by India Today.

Ultimately, Indo-Chinese food has become a definitively Indian commodity, now exported to restaurants around the world as the ‘Indian story of Chinese food’. However, history is written in both stories told and untold.

Recipe for Tibetan Momos with Sepen Dipping Sauce

For a vegetarian variant, replace the chicken with tofu or paneer and use vegetable stock.
Makes 32-36 momos

Ingredients
Momo Filling:
150g minced chicken
½ cup minced mushroom
¼ cup grated carrot
1 onion, grated
1 tbsp ginger, minced
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1.5 tbsp soy sauce
½ chicken stock cube 

Momo Dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour (maida)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup warm water 

Sepen Sauce:
2 tomatoes, chopped
10g coriander
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
½ tbsp red chili powder

Method

To assemble the filling, mix all of the Momo Filling ingredients together in a bowl. Cover and set aside.

To make the dough, start by combining the flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Mix together well and then slowly add the warm water, ¼ cup at a time, mixing it to make a dough. Knead for 3-5 min, to create a medium-firm dough that is not sticky. Cover the bowl and rest the dough for 30 minutes.

Once rested, divide the dough into quarters, and further divide each quarter into eight small balls. Roll each ball out to a 7-8cm diameter and 0.5cm thickness. Place one teaspoon of filling in the centre, and then using your thumb and forefinger, pinch the edges of the dough together to make a money-bag shape. Now keep this covered as you make the rest of the momos.

Cook the momos by either steaming them for 12-15 minutes, or, by pan frying them. To pan fry them, heat some oil in a frying pan and lay the momos in a single layer. Sear each side for one minute on high, then add ¼ cup water to the pan and cover to cook on a low heat.

To prepare the Sepen sauce, blend all the sauce ingredients together in a blender to make a smooth sauce. Adjust salt and chilli to taste.

Ragini Kashyap runs Third Culture Cooks in Vancouver, a supper club that focuses on a particular geopolitical conflict, offerings diners the chance to understand the history and significance of the region over 5-7 courses, the role of food in conflict, and finally, experience music and poetry from the region.

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