A historical look at the dosa ranked 10th on World's Best Pancakes List

Masala dosa was ranked 12th on the list of the World’s Best Pancake List that was released by TasteAtlas

Of late, Indian food has been rocking the global stage. After tea, now the humble dosa from South India has ranked 10th, while masala dosa ranked 12th on the list of the World’s Best Pancake List. Before Indians work themselves into a tizzy that dosa isn’t a pancake, TasteAtlas, an online travel and food guide, has listed it among several other dishes that aren’t considered a pancake either.

A Historical Look at the dosa ranked 10th on World's Best Pancakes List(Unplash)

Calling it “one of the most famous Indian dishes”, the website also mentions being “a staple dish in the entire country”. The explanation on the website shares: “It is made with soaked rice and black gram beans… and mixed to create a thick batter, usually left to ferment overnight. The mixture is enriched with a handful of fenugreek seeds, which give dosa its distinctive golden brown colour and a delicious, crispy texture.”

It went on to add, “Some believe that dosa had originated in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is an ancient dish, whose origins are traced back to the 1st century AD, when it was first mentioned in Tamil literature.”

A historical look at the dosa ranked 10th on World's Best Pancakes List(Unsplash)

Dosas are made with a fermented batter of rice and lentils. However, rice wasn’t always used to make the dosa batter, shares food historian and author Anoothi Vishal. “While idli is a relatively later-day innovation, the dosai or doshaka is an ancient pancake that finds a mention in the Sangam literature, as well as the 12th-century Manasollasa (Sanskrit text composed by King Someshvara III, who ruled in present-day Karnataka). It makes a mention of a pancake that is made with only lentils but not rice, much like the cheela from north India,” she says and hypothesises that rice may have slowly been incorporated into the batter as the cultivation of this staple grain spread in southern India.

Calling it the predecessor of fast food in the British Raj, Vishal adds, “In the Madras Presidency, while the British East India Company rules India, men, who lived away from their homes, were on the lookout for a clean, cheap and vegetarian dish that they could get quickly for lunch. That is how the dosa got popular.”

The restaurant-style masala dosa as we know it today came about sometime in the early 20th century when MTR opened in Bangalore as its founders, the Maiya brothers, migrated from South Canara (a region in the Madras Presidency).