In the Beginning there was Bombay Duck

ABOUT THE LECTURE

This talk is a history buffet. On the table are ten items and each is a window into the history of a community, that community’s cuisine and the larger dining culture of Bombay. Foods travelled to the city with colonists and migrants and were transformed in the Bombay kitchen.

For example, the cutlet tells the story of how a European item was “Indi-fied” by local cooks working in colonial kitchens. The mumbra, a peculiar Pathare Prabhu banana cake with shrimp, marries Konkan ingredients with a Western cooking technique – baking.

Let’s take the vada pao. This emblematic city snack tells you the story of the exchange of goods in the Columbian period and Bombay’s colonial and political history. The Portuguese colonists taught Goans how to make bread. Goan immigrants taught the city how to make pao. Potato was discovered in the Andes and introduced to the rest of the world by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. It was probably brought to India by the British. Maharashtrians made vada by flavouring the potato with spices and curry leaves. And in 1966, a street food vendor in Bombay put the vada into a pao and gave us the vada pao.

Hopefully, the talk will make one think about the idea of what it means to be native. A food might be associated with a place but its story is one of many journeys and transformations.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER AND THE BOOK

Pronoti Datta is a communications specialist, writer and editor. She’s the author of two books: the novel ‘Half-Blood’ (2022) and the recently published ‘In the Beginning there was Bombay Duck: A Food History of Mumbai’ (2025).

The second book was published by Speaking Tiger Books and is available for sale online and at your nearest bookshop. Here is the book blurb:

From the Kolis, who have been fishing in the city’s waters since much before recorded history, and early settlers such as the Pathare Prabhus, to the people who poured into the developing city in the centuries of British rule and those, like the Sindhis, who found a safe haven here during Partition, this is the first truly comprehensive food history of India’s great metropolis.

The city’s nativists like to champion what they consider ‘original cultures’. But originality resides in the Mumbaikar’s inventive impulse, a quality encapsulated in the nativist’s favourite food, the vada pao: Were it not for the Portuguese, who transported the potato or batata to Bombay, and taught the Goans the art of baking bread, or pao, the vada pao may never have been conceived!

Celebrating this rich diversity of cultures and cuisines, this book covers migrants from the Kanara coast, who gave the city the Udipi restaurant; Parsis, who introduced diners to Persian and Gujarati-inflected dishes, and their Irani brethren, who served this food in their iconic cafes; and the myriad Muslim communities that made the old neighbourhood of Bhendi Bazaar a gastronome’s place of pilgrimage.

Bombay Duck is a rigorously researched, delightfully anecdotal history of food in Bombay/Mumbai that is as colourful and cosmopolitan as the city itself.

WHAT TO EXPECT

🧠 👩‍🔬60 minute lecture about the Food History of Mumbai

🎤 30 minutes of interactive Q&A with the speaker

👋 30 minute mixer with the speaker and other participants

🍺 One complimentary alcoholic beverage or non alcoholic beverage is included with your ticket

Pint of View Mumbai is inspired by the Lectures on Tap and Pint of Science communities, and we're taking this format across 10+ major cities in India and counting! It’s where big ideas meet bar tables.

EVENT DETAILS

Title: In the Beginning there was Bombay Duck

Speaker: Pronoti Datta

Day: Sunday

Date: February 15th 2026

Time: 5 pm to 7 pm (Gates open at 4:30 pm)

Venue: Woodside Inn Bandra (How to get here?)

Disclaimer: Ticket holders must be of legal drinking age (21 and above).

At Pint of View Mumbai, curious minds gather over drinks to explore cutting-edge ideas and to unravel the threads of human culture. It’s the perfect way to spend your weekend - stimulating your mind, meeting people who think like you (or challenge how you think), and learning something you’ll definitely talk about all week.

See you at the lecture!

Warmly,

Diya and Abhishek

Curators, Pint of View Mumbai

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