The Colourful History of Dalmoth, UP’s Favourite Snack

Ask anyone from UP what their favourite snack is, and chances are they will talk of bread-butter-dalmoth. Anubhuti Krishna writes about the origin, history and geography of the snack and how, if at all, it has changed over time.

 My earliest memories of dalmoth are from the summer vacations of early ‘80s when mother and us — my brother, sister and I — would travel to my grandmother’s place. The tedious journey would culminate in a long session of chatting on granny’s mid-century sunmica dining table with puris and dalmoth. While the puris eaten were leftovers from the journey, the dalmoth came from my grandmother’s pantry. The elders added tea to the equation and we paired it with chilled glasses of Roohafza milkshake. Thirty-five years on, nothing seems to have changed: puri-dalmoth is still the first thing we eat when we reach Lucknow, though with granny gone, the venue is now mother’s dining table, also topped with sunmica.

A crunchy, spicy, tangy, mix of fried lentils, finest besan sev, and some basic spices, dalmoth has been an intrinsic part of Uttar Pradesh’s culinary landscape for over a century. You find it on breakfast tables, you have it with bed tea; it is packed for school, and popped straight into the mouth between meals. You see it sitting next to hand-cut whiskey glasses with as much élan as it does on the dented steel plate next to a chipped teacup. Grandmothers make it at home, grandfathers patronise dalmoth-makers in the city and every family is partial to one particular kind: the one with alu laccha, the one with peanuts, the one with cashews or the one fried in ghee. And while branded namkeens arrived in the state decades ago, they haven’t been able to replace dalmoth either on people’s plates or in their hearts.

 No one seems to know the exact place of birth of dalmoth. They also aren’t sure when, in the long history of the snack, it was exactly born. But everyone agrees that this crunchy mixture (named after the moth dal that is the primary ingredient of dalmoth) owes its origins to the dusty plains of western Uttar Pradesh. Agra, Bareilly, and Farrukhabad are towns that are often credited with its invention, and the whole state has various versions of dalmoth — some close to the original, some completely different, but each holding a significant place in the local cuisine.

According to some experts, it was Farrukhabad, a relatively unknown town on the banks of the Ganga where dalmoth was first made almost 200 years ago. “In my research of the region, Farrukhabad clearly emerged as the dalmoth capital of Uttar Pradesh,” explains Ruchi Shrivastava, a food chronicler and producer, who has done extensive work on the food of Uttar Pradesh. “According to local vendors dalmoth was eaten in the city as long as 150 to 200 year ago,” says Ruchi, “at the time, it used to be made by just one or two families.” Records, however, point to its creation only in the early 1900s when a young man called Deshraj started making dalmoth in his home. The mixture he created was so good that everyone in the town, including the English officials posted there, got addicted to it. Slowly and steadily more people from his community started making dalmoth; in just a few years dalmoth became one of the most important products of Farrukhabad. Since Farrukhabad is also the largest potato growing district of the state, grated fried potatoes, alu laccha, became an intrinsic part of the recipe. Another thing that went in was hing. With Hathras, the hing capital of the north being a neighbouring district, it was always a part of local palate, and adding it to the mixture helped enhance the flavour, aroma, and digestive properties.

According to dalmoth makers of Farrukhabad, the descendants of these few families went on to make new versions of dalmoth in the cities they migrated to. By changing a few ingredients and spices based on local preferences, they brought out new versions in every town. Given all cities that claim ownership over Dalmoth today are inside a 200-kilometer radius of Farrukhabad, it surely seems possible that it was taken there with people from Farrukhabad. “When our ancestors took dalmoth to different parts of the state, they added their own touches to it,” Abhishek Batham, the third generation owner of Farrukhabad’s largest dalmoth manufacturers, Kishan Namkeen Bhandar, informs me when we chat about the evolution of the snack from the city-specific nashta to one which is eaten in every home in UP. “In Agra, for example, they added pepper instead of red chilli and made the sev smaller and softer.” With just these two elements, says Abhishek, they changed the whole flavour profile of the snack and created a new product altogether.

If Agra seasoned its dalmoth with pepper, Bareilly added melon seeds, cashew nuts, aromatics and fried it in ghee thereby making it one of the most expensive and exclusive dalmoth in the state. “The balance of nutmeg, chilli, amchur and some secret spices, that our forefathers had added over 125 years ago, makes our dalmoth different from all others.” Rrishi Khandelwal of Kipps Sweets, the largest and most popular dalmoth makers of the city, tells me when I ask him about the secret to his family’s addictive dalmoth — his pride evident in his voice even from 250-kilometers away. “Even our relatives in Agra eat our dalmoth, and not the local version,” he quips.  According to Rrishi and his family, dalmoth has its origins in Agra though, and it is that recipe which his ancestors had tweaked to make their premium version with ghee and nuts. 

Traditionally, every part of dalmoth mixture was made by hand and fried in ghee. Tons of sev, potatoes, and dal was fried and stashed in clean, sterilised rooms and mixed by hand only by designated people. The recipes were guarded with life and experienced dalmoth karigars were a coveted catch. My mother, who spent most of her summers in her grandmother’s place in Farrukhabad, tells me how fascinated she would be as a child to see piles of dalmoth in these shops. “At the time there were only two variants,” she reminisces. “One was the classic dalmoth and other was called gadbad, a mixture of many things.” With time, machines came in, ghee was replaced with vegetable oil, and piles turned into labeled plastic packets. The dal however is still fried by manually and spices are still mixed experienced hands. The ingredients also remain the same: moth dal, alu laccha, and sev.

What started with just two variants has turned into over seventy versions of the mixture in the past decades. Every city in Uttar Pradesh has its variants and even outside the state, dalmoth is a fairly popular snack. In Delhi and Punjab it is called dalbiji, in Bengal it becomes chanachur and in MP, it retains its name but completely changes its character.

If you have grown up in Uttar Pradesh, you inevitably have a favourite version of the snack – from Agra, Bareilly or Farrukhabad. Every dalmoth maker inevitably follows one of these three schools of dalmoth making and his customers remain loyal to it too. With one of my grandmothers being a Farrukhabad girl and another a Bareilly woman, my family was always divided; I however had two favourites. It is only the third version, from Agra, that I could never appreciate. Not that it takes anything away from the popularity of Agra’s dalmoth throughout the world.

The erstwhile Mughal capital, Agra is home to some of the most popular dalmoth in the country today. That Agra is an important city in terms of both trade and tourism could be one reason; the other could be the robust marketing and nationwide presence of the most popular brand of dalmoth here, Panchi.

While the Bareilly and Farrukhabad versions of dalmoth are milder and neutral, dalmoth in Agra is spicy and tart; so strong are the flavours that one either loves it or hates it. “Dalmoth has been a part of Agra’s culinary culture for over a century,” says Nanu Singh, the manager at one of Panchi’s many shops in the city. Having sampled the others, he also feels that Agra’s dalmoth is the finest among its competitors. “Our dalmoth is indeed the best,” asserts Nanu Singh when asked which of the three dalmoths he prefers. “It owes its taste to the special ‘chaube ji ka masala’ that we have been adding for as long as we have been making dalmoth.” The sev, he says, is unique too—thinner and softer than any other, it makes the dalmoth khasta, which gives it a better mouth feel.

Much like the debate on its origin, the debate on whose dalmoth is best, is also a never-ending one. Those who live in UP continue to patronise dalmoths of their favourite dalmoth makers; those who have moved out long for its flavours, and many try to recreate them.

“When she moved out of Farrukhabad after her wedding, my amma missed dalmoth the most.” My mother, who saw her mother long for, and make her hometown’s version of dalmoth in her own kitchen, often tells me, “She made the simplest dalmoth, but it was also the tastiest.” While she never made it in my grandmother’s lifetime, in the years following her passing my mother started making the same dalmoth too. She says it is better than most commercial versions in the market and helps preserve memories of not only her mother, but of Farrukhabad, a city she hasn’t visited for decades. As for me, I have only eaten what my mother made. But I am now planning to get some shipped from Farrukhabad — the city I had the privilege of living in briefly, and learning to eat dalmoth in.

Should you want to make dalmoth at home, here is my mother’s (and her mother’s) recipe. It may be different from the classical dalmoth in some ways, but carries the same passion that won it pride of place in everyone’s heart.

Recipe: Dalmoth 

Ingredients
500 g black masoor dal 
100 g peanuts
250 g finest (zero number) sev:
100 g alu laccha (found in major grocery stores and can be bought online)
200 ml vegetable oil or ghee for frying
1 tsp black salt 
1 tsp salt
1 tsp red chilli powder
½ teaspoon amchur or dry mango powder

Method
Soak the dal overnight and drain in a steel strainer. Leave it in the strainer to drip dry for two hours or more.

When nicely strained, wipe the dal with a dry kitchen napkin (you can transfer it on the cloth and rub gently until completely dry).

In a large kadai, heat oil or ghee until it begins to smoke. Gently add half the dal in oil. When partially done it will rise to the top; let it cook for another two minutes after this and strain when done. Fry the second batch similarly and let it cool.

Fry the peanuts in the same oil and let it cool too. When everything is at room temperature, add the sev, dal, peanuts and alu laccha in a large vessel and mix gently.

Add black salt, regular salt, chilli powder and amchur as per taste. We suggest you add a little bit first and adjust according to personal preference. If you like some punch, you can add a little pepper or a pinch of garam masala to the mix.

When stored in an airtight container the mixture keeps well for over a month. It is another thing that it will probably get over in two days.

Anubhuti Krishna is a writer based in New Delhi. Passionate about travelling and eating, she finds ways to combine the two. Her work has been featured in major dailies and monthlies. She hopes someday it will find home in a book.

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