The eternal question remains. No, we don’t mean “to be or not to be”, but the other question, the one that has plagued some of us for years at end. This question: Melody itni chocolatey kyun hai?
The secret of Melody’s “chocolateyness” has been a mystery, a generational reference, an inside joke. It was also, we have to admit, a foolproof marketing campaign by Melody’s parent company Parle, who had us hinged on this question for decades.
It was this that led cooking enthusiast, and Instagram user Pranav Joshi, who goes by the handle @floydiancookery to decode this mystery in 2020.
According to Pranav, there were many factors that led to Melody’s ‘chocolatey-ness’, one of which was revealed to be an emulsifying additive called “soy lecithin”. The additive increases the shelf life of the candy, but also controls the crystallisation of sugar and the fluidity of chocolate in it, which gives it a fuller bite, making its sensation last longer in the mouth.
“Now you can have a better answer when someone asks that question”, Joshi wrote to his followers, who were thrilled with the examination.
Even though it has been years since that question was asked, and really, Melody is only one of the million treats available in the market today – Joshi’s quest exploded on the internet. That a decade-old, knockabout ad campaign could spark so much intrigue proves one thing… that we all spend too much time online.
Jokes apart — it also shows us how we are all eternally curious, especially about food.
From the time we are children — we pop unknown insects into our mouths, we bite into hard surfaces to test their textures, we push our own limits by trying things outside our immediate environments.
As we get older, we ask about origins of produce, we enquire about recipes from far away places, and in the end, we come back to our homes asking family members for heirloom tricks, enquiring eventually, about where we are from. We live in an age of decoding, deconstructing the always-changing, evolving, delicious world around us. We live on twitter threads that introduce new questions, of collective quests to salvage burning curiosities.
So here we are, presenting our first season — Curious, a tribute to being inquisitive about all things food.
In this season — our writers ponder several conundrums. Why do we crave sweet things? Where did the cult classic Hajmola come from and what is it’s story? What led to the madness that is the “ice-cream dosa” in Jayanagar? What goes into one bite of the sensational, vivacious dish that is paan? We also have some other quests – of showy nawabs and glitzy meals conducted for upmanship; of how the barfi – a sweet so ubiquitous and present in our lives – was once made from absurd choices of ingredients like cauliflower, but now calls for milk? How was the daiquiri frozen? Why do human beings eat (nearly) everything? We have a chef telling you what you don’t want to hear, but what you need to, about one of your favourite condiments. We’ve got two recipes from a small nook in India’s Northeast, a region filled with expansive culinary secrets; another from the presidential building, secrets from the kitchens of our political elite.
In this season, we call out to enthucutlets everywhere to join us and spark our curiosities, so we can think deeper, harder, and together about our food. While answers are great, it is questions that we chase at enthucutlet. We want you to join us in this quest — in this issue, and all the ones coming next.
Yours enthusiastically,
team enthucutlet