Google celebrates pani puri on anniversary of 51 flavours' world record

Google is celebrating India's famous street food pani puri—aka golgappa, aka phuchka, aka gup-chup—with a special interactive Doodle.

The game is inspired by a restaurant based in Madhya Pradesh's Indore, which created a world record in 2015 by making 51 flavours of pani puri. This piece of history was cooked up under the guidance of Master Chef contestant Neha Shah.

To mark eight years of the world record, Google had created a colourful doodle that allows users to help a street vendor fulfil pani puri orders by choosing different pani puri ingredients to match the flavour preferences and quantity requirements of each 'customer'. 

Google Doodles often see creative changes made to the search engine's logo to celebrate special occasions, historic events, cultures, art forms, significant personalities (well-known and lesser-known) and their contributions, and more.

Previously, Google has celebrated foods such as strawberries, bubble tea, kimchi, pad Thai, pie, pizza and, yes, the Indian mango.

Today's new pani puri game describes it as a “popular South Asian street food made of crispy shell stuffed with potatoes, chickpeas, spices, or chilis and flavoured waters".

Pani puri is a bite-sized snack consisting of a spherical, hollow puff of a 'flatbread' that is often enjoyed with a filling made of potatoes, chickpeas and a spicy-sour water, with regional variations. In Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, it is commonly filled with boiled chickpeas, a white pea mixture and sprouts, all immersed in a tangy mint-flavoured water. In northern states like Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, the potato- and chickpea-filled puris are dipped in jaljeera, a cumin-flavoured water, and also known as pani ke batashe. In eastern India, such as Bengal, the water is tamarind-based.

Some regions have an yoghurt-sauced variant, dahi puri or doi phuchka, as well!