At Rs90/kg, the dal — once a staple on celebratory menus — is rankling the middle class.
The humble kadhi is on an extended honeymoon this wedding season, supplanting preparations made of tur dal — once the star of feasts that marked Gujarati middle-class nuptials, but now divorced from menus owing to its pricey nature.
The dal, popularly known as Gujarati dal, has been flirting with the Rs90 per kg price band of late. Although it is still let into the cuisine of the wealthy in Gujarat, calls for the kadhi have been pouring in from vast swaths of the growing middle-class population of the state.
Curd and besan are the principal ingredients of the kadhi, which requires fewer ingredients than any dal-based dish. “We charge up to Rs10 extra per dish if a host demands tur dal in the menu of a wedding feast,” said Amit Mandalia, the owner of the Satellite-based Santosh Caterers. “Many families pick kadhi instead of dal because the latter would inflate the budget by up to Rs15000.”
According to market sources, some caterers do not levy an additional charge to incorporate tur dal. They want to remain in competition, but to save overheads, they use a greater proportion of ingredients such as corn flour in their dal-based preparations. Is the culinary jugglery worth the while? “There is no appreciable difference in cost between menus that offer Gujarati dal and those that serve kadhi,” said Pragnesh Shah who runs a catering business in Isanpur.
“However, our clients are making frequent inquiries about the price difference to settle their budgets. We adhere to a desired budget by changing other elements in the menu, which allows us to use dal sparingly.”
Curiously, wedding-budget intricacies often make it prudent to invite more people, because as the number of guests increases, there is a proportional dip in the per-head cost, and only a marginal rise in the overall budget. So people often choose to invite extra people to maintain relations rather than worrying too much about saving relatively insubstantial sums, the city catering experts said.
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