Especially the mobile stalls that gathered around the gate of schools during tiffin time or when the school gets over. Many of the school goers remained so hooked to them that not even the guardians but some times they themselves has a suspicion that whether these things are drugged or not.
On this list, supreme importance can be claimed by Fuchka. Small puffed crisp wheat balls stuffed with a mixture of boiled potato, boiled gram and roasted spices and filled with sour water of tamarind, fuchka has its origins in Benaras, where pudina and roasted red chili powder is a special addition.
One can find the same thing with a difference in the stuffing in panipuri of Mumbai, golgappa of Delhi and gupchup of Jharkhand. Fuchka can also be found in five star restaurants of Kolkata but those are a compromise in flavour for sophistication. One can find other varieties of fuchka like dahi-fuchka or alur dom fuchka with yogurt and smashed potatoes, served in sal (dry tree leaf) leaf bowl or the leaf itself shaped in a cone.
Even after that the taste from one fuchkawala (fuchka vendor) to other varies for the mixture in spices and obviously the mixing. With fuchka comes churmur. It is a mixture of potato slices, gram and crushed fuchkas with spices and tamarind water sometimes with a pinch of coriander or lime over it.
Another item can be found from these people are aloo-kabli. It has the same ingredients that of churmur with an addition of raw onion less than the crushed fuchkas. Most tasty you will find these items when licking the residue in the sal leaf.
Next in the queue comes telebhaja (oil fried snacks). Though every fried item is obviously fried in oil no one knew why only this variety is called so. Here the ingredients are sliced into thin pieces or boiled and smashed and then put into a batter of chickpea flour and then deep- fried in mustard oil. The spices used in the batter or during marinating vegetables is a secret.
The most popular ones are alur chop (potato cutlet), beguni (brinjal fry), piyaji (onion cutlet), fhuluri (chickpea flour cutlet) and dal bora (pulse cutlet). There are other varieties of telebhaja most of which are now more or less extinct. Some familiar ones are mochar chop (banana flour cutlet), dhoka (pulse cutlet), fhulkopir bora (cauliflour cutlet), dolma (stuffed vegetables), and chingrir cutlet (prawn cutlet). Kalika, a shop specialising in cutlets in central Kolkata still serves many of these items still now.
No one can forget jhal-muri or masala-muri vendors of Kolkata. Carrying a tin box with a multiple of partition and numerable raw materials stuffed in them they travel from one part to another. The perfect blending of spices and nuts and sometimes some kind of indigenous sauces to marinate the puffed rice is an art itself. Generally the softened varieties are Maharastrian in origin with sauces and potato or cucumber slices and the ones with more crunchy items and are termed bhelpuries or batata puries.
The Bengali variety does not contain any moistening agent. It is a pure blending of puffed rice, nuts, mustard oil, coconut and uncrushed spices except, sometimes with onion and green chili. Mainly the mentioned variety of puffed rice are found in the Bihari bhujia shops, who prepare muri on sand stirring it occasionally with the other side of the fresh broomstick.
The rice is puffed not using urea. Other things available there are soaked and boiled gram, thatched rice, popped rice and a numerous variety of gram, peas and other lentils, and groundnut roasted or fried and even spiced besides the pickles. Besides there were some Bengali shops where along with it chops are also prepared.
Other important persons are the ghugniwala. Ghugni is a preparation of gram or pea seeds cooked in spices. It can be both vegetarian and nonvegetarian in its preparation. Here too the crowd gathers for the tastier variety that depends on the blending of spices and the way of cooking. There is not one formula for its preparation and here lies the secret of taste.
Chowmein (mixed noodles) is another favourite which was introduced by the Chinese in Kolkata. Sometime during the 1980s, chowmein turned into a favourite street food with kiosks and carts mushrooming in nearly every locality.
The singara or the samosa is made of a vegetarian filling over a flour based covering, deep fried. The filling can be simply mashed potatoes, or may contain any vegetable including, famously, fresh cauliflower. During the Bengal winter the smell of cauliflower singaras being fried fills the air.
There are so many stories about the several Mughlai eateries along with modestly priced biryani, roll, tikka and cult-status kababs (small boneless chicken cubes roasted in tandoor).
Kolkata biryani evolved from the Lucknow style. The use of potatoes has become a distinct feature of the Kolkata biryani as an additional ingredient along with the meat. In addition, the biriyani is much lighter on spices and more subtle.
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Among sweet delicacies most prominent item is the malai borof or kulphi (ice-cream). The item is found still on the roadside vendors in earthen pot inside which the moulds are kept, a substitution of freezer. Many of these vendors also sell flavoured coloured water.
On hot and humid days sharbat or cold drinks of pudina (mint) and sugarcane are sold. Vendors selling these nectars in earthen pots called bhar or in glasses can be found even today. Besides there are the indigenous smaller versions of cotton candy or candy floss known popularly as burir chul (the hair of old lady).
Still popular among the school goers are the pickle vendors whose pickles are different from the Bengali varieties that are sun dried in oil and spices. Dried spicy plum, plum pickle, dried spicy green mango, or spiced tamarind pickles when served with a blending of different salts, specially a black salt called beet-nun (when touched on the tip of the tongue it delivers a shock like tremor on the sense organs) giving pleasure to the senses.
Raw mango, or amra, or kamranga are served here with their specific salt and spices blend with tamarind juice in their respective season. Sometimes amsatta of a black and too sour variety is also found. If you want you can also get a blending of their salt and spices. The black salt is often sold separately in small bottles.
Other common stalls are of roasted groundnuts. Roasted or boiled salted gram and peas are also available in these stalls. Sprout gram and peas mixed with boiled potato, sliced tomato sprinkled with lemon juice and beet salt is also found in street corners of Kolkata. The other mobile vendor is the chanachurwala. Sometimes called ghotigaram as the chanachur is roasted with chopped onion and raw mango or amra and sprinkle of blended salts in a ghoti (a specific shaped pot).
Due to invasion of sophisticated variety of hamburger or pizza shops or cake shops along with more indigenous variety of roll centers and chat centers of greater India these stalls are facing a threat. Many of the mentioned items are rare in today's Kolkata and some are an extinct species. But in their popularity chart there are behind no one and everyone hopes even the extinct ones to reincarnate in near future.
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