The noodle trap

The queue of people standing with empty plates was the longest at the Chinese counter. Guests cursorily look at fried rice and vegetable Manchurian but everyone unanimously piled fried noodles on their plates.

This was at a banquet hall in Noida, where one of the 40,000 odd weddings that reportedly took place last week in the National Capital Region (NCR) centred on Delhi was under way.

We had been informed by our hosts that the wedding buffet would be totally vegetarian and “Indian”. They had obviously factored in noodles and Manchurian as Indian.

Noodles may originally be a part of Oriental cuisine but in the Indian way of life, which constantly assimilates cultural influences, sometimes turning them into its own, noodles have been a headline maker. They are a part of our contemporary food culture.

The credit, of course, goes to instant Maggi noodles, first launched in India in 1983. It fascinated Indian children and their fussy moms with 2-minute “fastness”.

Maggi noodles meant instant liberation from painstakingly made Indian food—flours to be kneaded, chappatis rolled, pulses soaked overnight before being cooked, mutton to be fried brown with spices for an hour or more before cooking…so on. Yet, these two-minute noodles offered tanginess and taste that we as a people love.

To digress for a moment, a few months ago, when I was feeling a bit fed-up of sandwiches and pastas in Florence while on a work trip, well known Indian chef Ritu Dalmia, who I bumped into at an event, suggested a meal at an authentic Oriental restaurant to revive my taste buds.

“That’s the closest we have to Indian food,” she said gently. Anyway, over the decades, Maggi became an interchangeable word for noodles—one is a brand name, the other a food type; but who cared? It is like saying Colgate instead of toothpaste or Good Knight instead of mosquito repellent.

Maggi’s popularity has been amply dissected by cultural analysts. A BBC documentary made earlier this year explored how Maggi became India’s “iconic snack”. This was after the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) ordered Nestle India to take Maggi noodles off the shelves because of allegedly excessive lead content. Nestle India has brought Maggi back after an absence of five months and it is now declared safe but the noodles story is going in circles.

Especially now that instant atta (wheat) noodles made by Patanjali Ayurved, yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s yoga-ayurveda company, too, have been cleared after an initial probe by FSSAI of allegations that bugs were found in some packets.

Patanjali Ayurved is labelled India’s fastest growing packaged consumer goods company. From ₹ 450 crore of sales in 2012, it has grown to ₹ 2,000 crore in 2015. Barring instant noodles, all the other products it manufactures are rooted in a traditional Indian context: ghee, cattle feed, aloe vera products, herbal cosmetics, nutrients and supposed natural cures for some diseases—called nutraceuticals.

Even household cleaners are made from cow urine. It is positioned as an earthy brand, conceived and made in India. Even so, the company has included noodles in its product portfolio.

Undeniably, noodles sell fast. Families, friends groups, office and college canteens have their own recipes making noodles personalized in cutesy ways. The Hindustan Times canteen serves omelette Maggi, which is a big hit—a fried double omelette is crumbled and mixed with instant noodles. Elsewhere, I have heard of paneer Maggi, seekh kebab Maggi and funnily—crunchy peanut Maggi!

In his televised yoga camp talks, Baba Ramdev claims he wants to influence every Indian household to inculcate good habits and health. Yoga is not easy to practice but noodles are a fast way to enter households, aren’t they?

Whether they are made by Maggi or Patanjali Ayurved, noodles, even when they are made from wheat, fall into the category of fast food. Not the best option in India, the third most obese country in the world. All dietary guidelines to skirt the growing concern suggest a conscious limitation of fast foods, especially for children and adolescents.

That is my “noodle trap” question. Should a yoga guru who advocates Ayurveda, claims to cure hypertension, diabetes and even cancer through natural remedies and is a role model of extraordinary yogic prowess, manufacture “instant” noodles?

Scientific studies have still to prove whether instant foods made from wheat are healthier than instant foods made from white flour or maida (a derivative flour of wheat).

It is entirely Baba Ramdev’s privilege to stamp instant noodles as swadeshi, curious as it may from a food aesthetic point of view.

But his propagation of Patanjali Ayurved instant noodles as “natural and healthy,” at par with his health tonics, cures, herbal medicines and cosmetic and cow-milk ghee is a bit soggy.

He has hundreds of thousands of followers across India who are completely captivated by his yogic mastery and nature cure rhetoric. Statistically, a majority of them are also obese. Would they exercise caution for his noodles (like they would for Maggi as fast food) while continuing to buy Patanjali Ayurved’s cornflakes mix, ghee, honey or a cure for diabetes? I am not so sure. The lines are blurred.