Thanks to pitfoods.com for this image
Gol Gappa, also called Pani Puri (and affectionately called water balls by my cousin who can't speak Hindi), is one of my favorite snack foods. Most often eaten by the side of the road from tiny stalls that have stacks and stacks of the hollow, fried puri (the round, yellow spheres in the picture), this is probably the most delicious thing I have eaten in India during the entire trip. Although many people don't eat on the road because of concerns from where the water for the filling comes from (in India you can't drink water straight from the tap, because it's hard water), I personally think that those ones are the best. Case in point: In Bhubaneshwar, we had gol gappe (plural of gol gappa) in a stall outside a store (they used mineral water for the water, so my parents were fine with it). In Delhi, we had it in a restaurant known for its snacks and desserts. The ones out on the road tasted better. Maybe it was because it was raining and we were all huddled in a small area, trying not to drop the gol gappe and laughing at how spicy it was. I don't know. But they were delicious. Unfortunately, we had to have dinner after that, so I could only eat five of them.
But anyway, the key to eating gol gappe is being able to fit the entire sphere in your mouth. This sounds easier than it is, because when it's filled with everything, having to fit the sphere in your mouth and chew is quite difficult. The image shown above shows various things on the plate: the puri, the potato filling, the chickpea filling, the chili sauce, and the water that has various spices in it. To construct the gol gappa, you first make a hole at the top of the puri, so you can put the fillings in. You have to be careful not to poke the sphere too hard, because if the hole forms at the bottom of the sphere, the water that you put into the puri at the end drips out, making eating a gol gappa a very sticky action. After the hole in the puri comes stuffing the puri with the fillings. I normally only half fill the puri with potatoes and onions, but chickpeas are often put in as well, and some people (like my brother) fill the entire thing up. After that comes the water (water in Hindi is pani, so that's where pani puri, the alternate name for gol gappa, gets its name). I used to hate the water, preferring to eat the puri as soon as all the fillings were put in, but the taste grows on you. I only put a spoon or two in the gol gappa, but my parents, who have fond memories of chowing down gol gappa after gol gappa during their college years (and by chowing down I mean eating like 20 of them), fill the space not filled by the potatoes/chickpeas with water.
The real fun, however, comes when you eat the gol gappa. You have to eat the entire thing in one bite, otherwise it gets too messy to finish (the water and fillings spill out, and the puri, already soggy from putting water in it the first time, refuses to cooperate, forcing you to eat the fillings and puri with your hands). This makes for some very fun competitions. My brother and I generally share a plate of gol gappe, and have a competition to see who can't eat the entire thing in one bite. So, being the older one, I start, taking the smallest one. The contest progresses until one of us loses or we run out of gol gappe. I have an extremely small mouth, meaning that towards the end of the contest, my parents (who are watching the contest) generally crack up at the sight of a small Indian girl trying to stuff a gol gappa in her mouth, almost dislocating her jaw in the process.
There you have it, a description of one of my favorite snack foods. I'm a huge foodie (seriously, my Google homepage's background is a delicious pizza), so don't be surprised if all the posts suddenly turn into posts about food.
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