Lijjat papad is a household name across India and needs no introduction. But did you know that it's a Mumbai based brand made by an organization called Shri Mahila Griha Udyog that became a national brand by advertising on Doordarshan in the 80s and 90s?

They are made by thousands of women in and around Mumbai in their homes adding to their household income. They flatten the pappad and dry it for the rest of India. They are collected and packaged as Lijjat across India.

Pappad is a good candidate for a national dish like dal or biryani. It comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. It has wonderful variations and it's a snack that punches above its weight. For example, it is a popular breakfast item in Mumbai. These are truck drivers who have arrived in Mumbai with their goats and sheep to the annual Bakrid Market of Deonar having it for breakfast. Pappad sellers walk around the city with their crisp snack all day long across Mumbai much like the idliwallas.

You get all the types of pappads from across India, in Mumbai. The most popular ones are the Lijjat type ones of Western and North-Western India and its clones, the Gujarati community probably sources and consume the most diverse types of pappads along with the Rajasthanis, thanks to their weather that has made them experts in food that can be stored and consumed easily. The bars and restaurants serve a uniquely Mumbai snack with masala and onions on them, the Tamil, Kerala, and Mangalore stores have their own versions of Appalams, Pappadoms, and Happalas, to name a few.

Pandaram

I have a childhood memory of pappad or pappadom that has stayed with me for all these years. I used to go to Kerala as a child to my mother's village during the summer holidays. On one such holiday, I noticed a very old man who went from home to home selling something from a large cloth, also the same colour as his clothes. He would stand in the courtyard of the homes he visited, I must mention that the homes I saw were the better off upper-caste Hindu and Christian homes. He was dressed in dull white clothes, worn in a different fashion than most people did, and spoke a slightly different dialect. On questioning the other kids who were playing with me, I learned that he was what they called a pandaram, a caste that made pappad for living. In the old days, they went from home to home delivering pappadams. This man was a remaining sign of that practice. They also added that his children have moved on to the trade, but the old man, whom they simply called as 'pandaram' and not his real name continued to supply to some homes that were on his regular route for decades.

Those of you who speak Malayalam or Tamil would also know that the word Pandaram is used in a derogatory way and belongs to the dustbin of history.

Luckily, the pappadam trade has moved on and scaled up. It is likely that the trade is still run by members of that same caste and if you go to a Kerala Store anywhere in Mumbai, you get pappadoms that are made the way it is in the Trichur/Guruvayur region and branded as such. They are amazing and made right here in Mumbai. Maybe by descendants of one such man who went from door to door.