nasto

i couldn’t live my life without it.

Nasto has forever been one of the most important foods in my life and I don’t think it’s been written about enough in Indian food writing.

Nasto is a type of Gujarati savoury, spicy, lemony snack. Examples include chevro, chakri, sev mumra and farsi puri. Each type of nasto contains different ingredients but most common are rice flour, gram flour, spices which mixed and deep fried.

Both my grandmas used to make literal buckets of nasto to keep stock to last couple of months.

When she was able to, my nani used to fill Celebration chocolate tins full of chakri and chora furi. My dadi still makes buckets full of sev mumra, farsi pur and chevro, despite us telling her to relax.

Chakri. Image credits: Sanjana Feasts

When I was younger, my Sunday breakfasts used to consist of a mix of all nasto we had at home, creating a special ‘Ria Mix’. It was my go-to while watching Power Rangers in my Doctor Who pyjamas. I’d have it alongside some chai, followed by several glasses of water.

My nasto breakfast continued throughout the week. I’d have a chevro toast sandwich before school, and even now before work.

I was sent to university and Spain with nasto dubbas. During my first year of uni, I’d end up eating a whole load, straight from the box in the middle of the night, usually when I missed home and found myself hungry as I never knew how much food to cook myself.

In Spain, I used to make a big cup of chai after work and have some nasto alongside with it. When my stash ran out, I used to replace it with ready salted Lays — honestly, ready salted crisps and chai is a top-tier combination which isn’t spoken about enough.

So, nasto has always had a presence in my life until it didn’t. And I missed it dearly.

Last year, for the first time ever, we didn’t take any nasto on holiday. We thought we wouldn’t need it for an all-inclusive.

It was only until we saw a Gujarati family eating chevro out of little plastic bags, I felt lost without it.

It was a pretty stressful day of travelling and we arrived at the hotel at midnight. The hotel kindly served us tea and sandwiches but I still felt like something was missing.

Then, I saw the chevro eaters. Even ready-salted crisps didn’t settle my cravings at that point.

That day, I swore I would always take an emergency box of nasto anywhere I go for a holiday and I always pack a little dubbo of sev mumra everywhere I go.