Namak Para / Nimki

Namak para, nimki, namkeen para — the name changes every few hundred kilometres and the snack does not. Dough rolled thin, cut into diamonds and fried until it blisters and goes properly hard. Ajwain through it, salt on it, nothing else pretending to be there.

This is the thing you eat standing at the kitchen counter with tea, and the thing that gets made in a large enough quantity at Diwali that it is still around in December. It stays crisp for a long time, which is exactly why it was invented.

Fried in small batches so the colour stays even across the pack — a fryer run too long gives you a pouch where half the pieces are dark. Packed and sealed the day it is made.