Is Pani Puri Junk Food? The Chutney Was Always Medicine

Sanjana laughed and showed me her phone. "My nutritionist banned pani puri. Pure junk, she says." I asked her one thing. Have you ever read the chutney recipe? Pani puri was never junk. The chutneys are chatpata. Sweet, sour, lightly spiced. Those tastes were chosen to wake a sluggish gut in summer heat. The same spices that make rasam, the South Indian answer to weak digestion. Medicine, disguised as a snack. So what broke it? Chillies reached India in the 1500s. We loaded raw chilli into...