These days, even Target is in the business of selling Indian food. The big-box retailer offers pre-packaged, microwaveable meals such as tikka masala and curried chickpeas. The fine print on the labels suggests serving the meal with naan, “a traditional Indian bread.”
But it’s in this fine print that some Indian food experts say American grocers, retailers and even Indian restaurants are missing the point.
Naan is what most Americans think of as the traditional accompaniment to an Indian meal. And yes, the flaky, buttery bread, served steaming hot out of a clay oven, is delicious and tempting — but it’s not what Indians eat when they sit down to most meals.
“I’m happy that Indian food is becoming mainstream, but that is not really Indian food,” says Madhu Gadia, a registered dietitian and author of The Indian Vegan Kitchen (Perigee Trade, $18.95).
There are dozens of different breads in Indian cuisine, including naan. Some (such as puris) are deep-fried, some (such as stuffed paranthas) are buttered heavily before being cooked on the stovetop, and others are made from unique ingredients (such as chickpea flour and ground lentils).
But as to the most basic, everyday bread in many Indian households, roti — not naan — is it.
Not a ‘showcase’ food
Also referred to as chapati or phulka, roti is an unleavened flatbread made from a simple mixture of whole-wheat flour and water.
It is rolled out by hand in Indian homes until round and thin like a tortilla, and cooked over high heat on a slightly concave iron griddle called a tava until hot steam blows it up into an air-filled ball. It’s served slightly buttered.
Roti is especially popular in parts of northern India, where the wheat used to make it is grown. It often takes the place of rice at the dinner table. Its simple, basic method of preparation may be why it has been overshadowed by naan outside of India.
“Naan is popular because it is a showcase food in restaurants, which often have tandoori ovens in the window,” Gadia says. “It also tastes good like a white bread, versus wheat bread.”
Naan, made from white flour, is leavened with yeast and sometimes yogurt. Some restaurants even add eggs and oil.
For regular naan eaters, the calories can add up. That’s why Gadia, a nutritional and diabetes consultant, cautions that naan should be considered a “sometimes food” among Indian food lovers and, especially, Indian Americans.
But naan is nearly everywhere these days. Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s and other grocers sell it. Even Pillsbury has a frozen version. Most do offer a whole-wheat option, but even that comes with a price.
At Whole Foods, one whole-wheat naan has 260 calories and 7 grams of fat. At Trader Joe’s, one piece boasts 240 calories and 3 grams of fat.
In a restaurant, a typical 10-inch naan can contain as many as 500 calories and sometimes up to 20 grams of fat, says Gadia. A 6-inch homemade roti has about 70 calories and no fat, she says.
It’s all about educating the public to the different types of Indian breads, says Robert Whittaker, bakery coordinator for the Midwest region of Whole Foods.
Though roti or chapati are offered at a few Whole Foods stores in the area, some, including the newest flagship in Lincoln Park, discontinued it and replaced it with their hot seller — naan.
“We were selling a couple cases a day of [naan], and the other stuff, maybe three or four [packages] a day, if that,” Whittaker says.
Educating the public was the main selling point of my first roti-rolling class at the Kids’ Table, a children’s cooking school at 2337 W. North.
On a recent Saturday, 11 parent-child teams gathered to learn the art of making healthy, homemade Indian flatbread in just a few easy steps, the way my mother taught me and my grandmother taught her.
About half the class were parents of Indian backgrounds who grew up in the United States and never focused on learning how to cook all the amazing dishes that seemed to magically appear on the dinner table.
They say the alternative — eating out — has taken its toll.
“We had fresh chapatis and rotis growing up,” says Trupti Gokani, a neurologist who grew up in Glen Ellyn. She remembers naan being a luxury, not the norm it is today.
Gokani and her husband watched their two young kids, 7 and almost 5, roll out their own spinach-filled rotis and eat them with pride.
“My daughter gobbled them up. It made me feel so good that it was fresh food, that she put it together and then ate it,” Gokani says.
Now if the everyone else would just catch on.
Anupy Singla is a Chicago free-lance writer and author of the blog indianasapplepie.com.
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