Billing for your restaurant or dhaba in Jharkhand
The plate of litti, the seasonal dish and the works canteen's month, all on your phone.
Shift towns, a highway and a capital: who eats at a Jharkhand table
A Jharkhand restaurant feeds different people in different places, and the owner learns who from the tables.
- In Jamshedpur most people work in industrial units: Tata companies, iron and steel, automobile and cement.
- Tata Steel's Noamundi mine in West Singhbhum is the area's largest employer, with about 1,500 on its rolls, and has drawn equipment and logistics firms.
- Giridih is known as a place of ruby mica and a coal field, and the Grand Trunk Road passes through it.
- Ranchi, the state capital, is an important centre of trade and commerce in Jharkhand; nearby forests supply furniture, match box and paper industries.
A menu that follows the leaves, a haat shopping bag with no bill and a kitchen that lives by the market day
The menu changes with the leaves, and the printed list does not
A kitchen that cooks with leaves, flowers and what the haat has that week adds a dish when it comes in and loses it when it goes, one day a leaf curry and the next day litti and chokha. The printed list still names a dish that ended last week, and the rate on the wall for the one that began yesterday does not exist yet.
The leaves come from the haat in a bag, with cash and no bill
The cook buys the week's leaves, flowers and fish at the haat from sellers who give no paper. The cost lives in his pocket, the quantity lives in his memory, and by Thursday nobody can say how many bundles came in or how many were cooked.
The haat decides what the kitchen has for the next six days
Leaves, flowers and fish come in on the market's day, and after it the kitchen cooks from what it bought. Buy too little and the best dishes end by Wednesday. Buy too much and the leaves wilt before the weekend. The next buying list is written from a feeling about how the last one went.
A dish added with the season, the haat bag counted in the same day and a highway guest who pays and goes
The printed list on the wall names a curry that ended last week
The list on the wall was printed when the leaves were plenty. The leaves stopped coming last week, and the curry is still on the list. A guest points to it and you must say no. The bill is made on the phone and carries only what was cooked that day, so the wall may be wrong but the bill is right.
The haat bag is added to the stock the same day, bundle by bundle
When the cook comes back from the haat, add each kind of leaf and fish to the stock with its quantity. Each plate cooked takes it off, so on Thursday the count says what is left of Tuesday's leaves, and the Friday dish is chosen from what is really there.
The driver asks for the dish of the week and pays from his phone
A driver who stops here wants the dish he cannot find on any other road. Tell him what the haat brought this week, and he orders it. He pays by UPI on his phone and is back on the road before the leaf curry has cooled.
What the phone does between the coal fire and the counter
Godown stock
The store room with the sacks of flour, the oil and the dry goods counted apart from what is out on the kitchen counter, so a full store does not hide an empty tray.
The whole shop in one place
At the end of the week the plates sold and the bundles of leaves and flour used are read together, and the list for the next haat is written from them.
Daily reports
Which plate sold on which day of the week, so the slow days are cooked for lightly and the haat day heavily.
Questions Jharkhand restaurant owners ask about plates, seasons and canteens
A dish is on my menu only while its leaves are in season. What happens to it when the season ends?
Stop selling it. Its line and every bill it was on stay in your reports, so when the season comes again you can see how many plates it made.
Three women bring leaves to the kitchen door on haat morning. Can each have her own page?
Yes. Each seller is a supplier with her own page. Note the bundles she brought and the day, and you see what each one brought and what you still owe her.
The leaves from Tuesday's haat must last till Friday. On Thursday, can I see how many bundles are left before I choose the dish?
Yes. The bundles you added on the haat day are a count under their name. Take off the bundles that go into the pot each day, and on Thursday the count shows what is really left. Choose Friday's dish from that number and not from a guess at the back of the kitchen.
A Ranchi tribal-food table and the haat behind it
Ajam Emba, a tribal-food restaurant in Ranchi, offers about 50 seasonal items, including 20 kinds of green leafy vegetables and 10 kinds of flowers such as mahua. A menu like that changes through the year, and its owner has to price each dish as it comes in. A dhaba on the highway has a smaller menu and a faster turn, but the same question: what is the rate of today's dish, and has it changed since the morning.
Ajam Emba buys most of its ingredients from local haats (weekly markets) or the community, and buys fish, chicken, coriander and tomatoes from the local market. For a kitchen like that, the day the haat is held decides what is cooked on the days after it. The same is true of a dhaba that buys its vegetables on the market day: the shelf is full on one day and thin on the next, and the cooking follows it.