Roopa Pai on how ‘chow chow’ or Bangalore brinjals became a staple on the city’s plate

The death of Tipu Sultan ended a glorious era of resistance in south India to the rise of the British Empire. With Tipu out of the way, a vast tract of the peninsula became available for exploration to British geographers, geologists, surveyors, mapmakers, botanists and others. Several pioneering scientific projects, including the Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS) of India, began as early as 1800, when a pilot for the GTS was carried out in Bangalore by Lt Col William Lambton. Another project that was immediately undertaken was the study of the flora in Tipu’s beloved Lalbagh, where, 80 years later, the chow chow was first acclimatised.

Bangalore’s darshinis are justifiably famous for their chow-chow bhath, a dish that features a little mound of khara bhath alongside a little mound of kesari bhath, each held together by tuppa (ghee) and love. But the chow chow in the title of this column has nothing to do with bhath; it refers to the “Bangalore Brinjal” or the seemebadanekaayi, whose mild taste lends it a versatility happily exploited in the Karnataka kitchen.

How did the Jamaican chocho or chayote, introduced to the Old World via the so-called Columbian Exchange (a mega-swap of grains, vegetables, culture, ideas, and human beings between…

Read more