The beloved 'snack of wealth' made on Delhi's streets

Some vendors say moonlight and dew are the magic ingredients, but modern developments are moving this beloved sweet treat off the streets and into fine-dining restaurants.

When the first chill of winter hits Delhi in mid-November, the city changes overnight. Rickshaw drivers don mufflers, morning chai becomes hotter and sweeter, and in Old Delhi's Chandni Chowk market, street vendors start selling daulat ki chaat. The creamy seasonal confection resembles smooth tufts of mousse and can only be prepared in the cool weather, otherwise it will melt. Piled into deep aluminium vessels, it is shaped into a dome, dolloped with saffron foam, sprinkled with rose petals, and then covered in a fine muslin and set atop slabs of ice.

When a customer approaches, the vendor pulls back the muslin like a bride's veil – a delicate, two-handed job – and scoops spoonfuls of the sugary whipped cream into a bowl, topping it with crumbled khurchan (rich, nutty, condensed milk solids), edible silver foil and nuts.

In a country known for its savoury street food, sweet daulat ki chaat is an anomaly. For one thing, "chaat" usually refers to a variety of savoury, tangy street food. For another, the origin of this dish largely remains a mystery. It shares similarities with other foamy snacks across northern India (makhan malai in Kanpur, malaiyo in Varanasi, nimish in Lucknow, solah maze in Agra and dudh na puff in Gujarat), but any true fan will tell you that daulat ki chaat is a notch above the rest.

Daulat ki chaat loosely translates to "snack of wealth", an opulent moniker that might come from the effort and care that goes into crafting it. During the winter, Adesh Kumar, a well-known street vendor in Chandni Chowk, who took over his family's 40-year-old business from his father, wakes at 02:30 every morning except Sunday to hand-whisk a mixture of milk and heavy cream that he leaves out overnight in the cool air. (Street vendors prone to romanticising the dish will tell you that the milk and cream are left outside to be touched by moonlight and dew, which perfectly set the chaat.)

Using a traditional mithani, a wooden butter dasher coiled in string, he tugs the two loose string ends back and forth like a pulley until the liquid is transformed into an airy froth. Despite the availability of modern kitchen tools, Kumar firmly believes his handmade method (which he learned from his father) is better. "The whole process [of whisking] takes us about six hours," he said. "By 07:30 or 08:00, we're out selling it fresh for the day."

Kumar sells his richly named snack starting at 60 rupees (£0.63) a serving, and the price increases with the addition of other garnishes like crushed pistachios, silver foil or extra saffron foam. But with the cost of ingredients steadily rising these days, his profit margin is getting smaller. What's more, inflation is just one of a few present-day developments that are affecting the centuries-old dish; climate change (which shortens the selling season) and the interest of restaurant chefs in making upscale versions are also helping to create a perfect storm of modernity that could make daulat ki chaat disappear from the streets altogether.

Since India has a long history of oral tradition, scholars don't know with absolute certainty how this dish came to be. But it's well-loved in Delhi for its romanticised links with the Mughals, an imperial dynasty remembered for their opulence. As Chef Sadaf Hussain, 2016 MasterChef India finalist and author of Daastan-e-Dastarkhan: Stories and Recipes from Muslim Kitchens, explained, "Chaat [in Hindi] means 'to lick'. And just like daulat [meaning 'money' or 'wealth'] vanishes, so does daulat ki chaat." He speculated that the addition of nuts and saffron might have also helped give the snack its wealthy status. "This is what leads me to believe this is a very Islamic and maybe Mughal [dish]," he added. 

"It's a wealthy person's chaat," Kumar agreed. "It was eaten by Mughal royalty in the old days; it wasn't for the average person."

The Mughals were a Turco-Mongol dynasty who colonised India between 1526 and 1858. According to legend (and to some vendors who sell the dish), daulat ki chaat was popularised by Emperor Shah Jahan's daughter, Jahanara Begum, whose urban planning influenced Shahjahanabad (modern-day Old Delhi) in the 17th Century.

But since there's no specific mention of daulat ki chaat in authoritative Mughal-era texts – such as the 16th-Century Ain-e-Akbari (which details how Emperor Akbar managed his kingdom, down to his 400 cooks) and the 17th-Century Nuskha-e-Shahjahani (which lists Emperor Shah Jahan's recipes) – the origin of this dish has left culinary historians stumped.

Another theory of its origin is that the Botai tribe from Afghanistan, who churned and fermented mare's milk, brought the dish (or, at the very least, the technique for making it) to India via the Silk Road.

"It is possible that this did come from the Botai," said Hussain, but he noted there's no written documentation to confirm this. Moreover, Hussain believes the process of was likely a preservation technique.

Culinary documentarian Shubhra Chatterji – director of the Lost Recipes TV series and author of the upcoming culinary-history book Rasa: The Story of India in 100 Recipes (set to be released in India in 2023) agreed, pointing out that while the Botai are known for domesticating the horse, it is unlikely that the fermented mare's milk dish was deliberately a dessert. "Food [back then] was functional," said Chatterji.

Hussain believes that it's possible that the Mughal version developed when the empire started inviting artisans to its new capital of Shahjahanabad, as a way to enhance culture. He posited that an existing, denser dessert from Varanasi and Mathura, called makhan malai ("butter cream"), could have made its way there and was refined into daulat ki chaat.

Chatterji, on the other hand, thinks the sweet street food of today might have descended from the nawabs (or viceroys) of Lucknow, who had money and time to spare in the late 1800s after the British annexed their state. "All the money, which was [previously] used for the military, went into patronizing the arts," she said. "It could be here, under the nawabs, that nimish [Lucknow's version of daulat ki chaat] might have come about."

Regardless of its past, daulat ki chaat is having a moment now. It's become a trend on social media thanks to a string of food influencers who have popularised the pretty, Instagrammable dish. Fine-dining restaurants, such as Haveli Dharampura in Chandni Chowk and Trèsind in Mumbai, have begun to feature it on their menus too. Chef Manish Mehrotra's version at Indian Accent in New Delhi is perhaps the most well-known: he prepares it using a pressurized cream-whipping siphon, and serves it with fake 500-rupee notes for 720 rupees (£7.60), which is 12 times what street vendor Kumar charges.

"It is very much a food of the streets which may have come from the courts [and] is now slowly making its way back into fine dining," said Chatterji.

The shift is making it hard for street vendors to compete. Restaurants can make and sell the delicate daulat ki chaat year-round at a fraction of the cost, using state-of-the art tools that are less labour-intensive and less time-consuming. What was once a family trade is being erased on account of this. Kumar's father, who learned the trade from a cousin, was able to put his five children through school and college. Other street vendors aren't as fortunate, though, and many see this as a dying art, with children who seek employment in other sectors.

With additional challenges like climate change, the season for daulat ki chaat is shrinking too. Typically, it was cold enough for street vendors to prepare and sell it from Diwali to Holi (autumn to spring, or October through March), but the Kumars now only sell it between mid-November and mid-February. 

Still, the Delhi dessert remains a favourite winter specialty for locals. "I like daulat ki chaat much better than the other versions," said Hussain. "It's light, it's not super sweet, and [is] perfectly balanced." To help sustain its future, sweet-toothed patrons should head to Chandni Chowk and ask street vendors like Adesh Kumar for a scoop – complete with all the toppings.

BBC Travel's Asia Fast Food shines a light on beloved family recipes and favourite street food stalls, where dishes are imbued with cultural significance and flavoured with a sprinkling of stories.

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