Gujarat’s Penchant For Ice creams

Gujarat is associated with rich but oily food, but the state has a fancy for ice creams unlike any other state. Recently, the BBC had put out that it accounts its fancy for 12 percent of all ice cream consumption across India. That is something huge.

There is just no stopping the people, who have a taste for all innovations in taste from the basic vanilla to just about anything: even mixed with the usual stuff the halwai makes, to dressing of a sprinkle of black pepper. Quite eclectic, to say the least. Ice cream wrapped with what a laddu is made of has been also mentioned.

“The Gujaratis have a fetish for fresh vegetables and fruits. That is why the larriwallah– the pushcart vendor - was a welcome sight to sore eyes.”

What it didn’t point out was ice cream in Vadodara first served with a green chilly flavour. And, believe it or not, super-chilled ice cream dollops dipped in dough and fried like bhajjiya, also an invention there. It was done so quickly that the ice cream inside did not melt and leak out of the dough covering.

Pramod Mahajan, easily one of the best orators of the BJP, used to explain in his speeches what a contradiction was, like Congress claiming probity: “a hot ice cream”. I had asked him if he had savoured in Vadodara, but no, but the innovative businessman had beaten him to it in turning a concept into a reality. Life has its surprises.
It is hard to say if the gluttony for this dessert was the reason why that state’s home-grown brand, Vadilal, grew to an astounding size, or whether the stuff made addicts out of the Gujaratis. It does not matter when, a serving of an ice cream is always welcome.

“It does not matter when, a serving of an ice cream is always welcome.”

Now smaller ‘specialist’ makers are available, from the small one-stall vendor to a couple making it to sell from their veranda.
Let me take you back to the early 1980s. The Gujaratis have a fetish for fresh vegetables and fruits. That is why the larriwallah– the pushcart vendor - was a welcome sight to sore eyes. Housewives didn’t mind their siesta broken by their arrival on the street. It is a cultural thing. Cooking oil and wheat had to be stored for the year, but anything else had to be fresh.

That is why they did not like storing – at least then – them in the refrigerator. But it had a presence in every middleclass home, just like in cities, almost every adult also owned a two-wheeler, and their savings generally meant investment in Reliance scrips. Because of high summer heat, the ‘fridge was for milk, curds, drinking water, and, you guessed it, ice cream.
This fancy for the ice creams was something I wasn’t ready for when transferred to Ahmedabad in 1983 from a district headquarters in Andhra Pradesh, Kurnool.

In my first of four years of living in Ahmadabad, I was aghast seeing people buy savour ice creams at 11 pm in biting winters. Thereafter I was a convert!
When Chnadrakant Shah, a rice-miller and a rich trader, a friend, was informed of my transfer to Ahmedabad, he bluntly told me: “I’m jealous of you. You get Vadilal there, not here!” Used to 3-4 flavours in small towns of the south, not that bigger cities had much to offer either those days, my head spun while reading the long list of flavours on a parlour board in Ahmedabad. That was Vadilal’s major outlet.
This portly Mr Shah rued the fact that on his annual visits to Bhuj, he could not stopover at Ahmedabad to drop in at Law Garden. Though Bhuj had an airport, it was linked only to Mumbai. “The fun of eating ice creams at Law Garden is something different, Maheshbhai,” he explained, and to him, I was truly blessed.

There were other things to learn. The gifts to the newlyweds were not in the shape of articles. A Gujarati explained that such gifts meant the risk of the couple getting more than one of the same, and not all newlyweds moved into their own nuclear families. They were to be handed over cash in envelopes. It is known as Chandla.
How much, I asked a helpful friend, when invited to a wedding. How many of you are attending, he asked. “Two, my wife and I,” he was told.

Normally, for middleclass weddings then, it was between Rs 11 per head attending as a guest, the better-offs deserved Rs 25 per guest. “Add a bit for ice cream if you know it is going to be served generously. Gujaratis know how to price and value anything properly. Practical.

Mahesh Vijapurkar