Bakarwadi

As soon as you think about Bhakarwadi you can feel the taste lingering in your mouth while the iconic Chitale Bandhu 'Bakarwadi' picture is etched in your mind. Born out of Pune it has now become the specialties while Chitale Bandhu has become synonymous to Bhakarwadi. I think they definitely have a monopoly for this item and for obvious reasons. Since I am from Pune or 'Chitale Land' I was hooked on to this since my childhood. Nonetheless, I would definitely recommend everyone to try this snack.

‘Bakarwadi’, which is perhaps the largest selling and most popular of its products, is now being manufactured on automated machine lines. It goes through stages of dough mixing – sheeting – masala spraying – rounding – frying – packing. Each of these stages of manufacture is carried out on automated machines or units. The end process stage of packing is done on a packing machine imported from Germany wherein the ‘Bakarwadi’ is packed under vacuum and nitrogen gas is flushed inside to improve the shelf life.

It's packaged by the name 'crispy tasty spring roll'.

Read more about it here with some nice pictures of the entire process.

Some more trivia about Chitale Bandhu:

Following in the footsteps of a successful dairy business established by Shri B. G. Chitale at Bhilawadi in the Sangli district of Maharashtra state in 1939, Shri. Raghunathrao (Bhausaheb) Chitale, his eldest son, promoted the firm of Chitale Bandhu Mithaiwale in 1950 in Pune, Maharashtra.

The firm began its operations in the heart of the Pune city at Bajirao Road and is still in existence there as a major and modern selling outlet. Eventually, one more principal outlet at Deccan Gymkhana, Pune was opened, the expansion being the brainchild of Shri. N. B. (Rajabhau) Chitale, the younger brother of Shri. Raghunathrao.

Students traveling to US generally carry loads of these or even people visiting India generally carry it back with them to give it to other friends and family. Though you get it in a lot of stores in US (atleast in Boston and California) the delight and redolence of eating it hot and fresh from the store is divine :) Thanks to all these efforts I have a perennial stock of Bakarwadi which I relish a lot.

They currently export it to Israel, UK, US, Singapore and a lot of other countries. Hopefully they find some way to increase the shelf life of all the sweets as well so that they can send 'em here.