Making Sense of Indian Buttermilk and Yogurt Drinks in Dallas-Fort Worth

Sweet Lassi Indian Drink

IRVING, TX—What to drink in Dallas? Yogurt and buttermilk, of course!

Between Dallas and Fort Worth, one of America’s largest South Asian diaspora communities has made itself at home. Businesses owned by and catering to this community are everywhere. In Irving, between the two main cities, the Desi presence is undeniable. In order to get a taste of Dallas’s drinking culture, I turned to the many Indian bakeries and restaurants in the area, but the diversity of drinks made from yogurt and buttermilk left me baffled, and a little bit lactose intolerant. 

Dairy, in the Indian and South Asian diet, is a cornerstone. From the tofu-like paneer to the cool refreshment of lassi, milk is prominent in this cultural landscape that eschews killing the cow for its meat. South Asia, though, is incredibly diverse in ethnicity, language, and cuisine. So, approaching a handful of restaurants with a focus on dairy drinks can barely scratch the surface of what these drinks mean. 

For me, after drinking more dairy than I have in years, I left with a greater appreciation for what could be done with milk–the drinks were sour and tangy, sweet and herbal, smooth and frothy. At the end of it all, though, I still don’t have a good understanding of where each drink fits in. They all taste different and have confusingly similar and different names.

Indian Baked Goods

A Texas highway cuts through Irving on a massive overpass. As far as the eye can see, the parallel frontage roads are flanked by lofty flag poles alternating between the American flag and the Lone Star. Car dealerships, fast food, and strip malls–this is Irving, Texas. Within these strip malls, Indian grocery stores, Bangladeshi takeout joints, and Jain-compliant vegetarian restaurants do business. 

I start my day of dairy at the grocery store to see what options I have from bottled commercial brands. Lassi, both mango and plain, is the main attraction here. Lassi, a yogurt based drink that can have a variety of flavors, is one of India’s favorite drinks. These commercial brands of lassi come as no surprise, but why do the jugs on the next shelf only say yogurt drink? Is there a distinction between the two? In the next section, the cooler is stocked with Indian style whole milk yogurt, which is presumably the base ingredient for one if not both of these offerings. 

I move on to taste such drinks at the local restaurants and bakeries. 

Chaas drink
Chaas with cilantro on top

First, I go to Jagdish Farshan, a Gujarati bakery and restaurant in Irving. They have chaas on the menu and it comes in a small styrofoam cup. The chaas, I am told, is a simple mix of yogurt, salt, masala spice blend, and cilantro. It is famous in Punjab, where it is consumed to ward off the heat.

The drink is off white in color with a pinch of chopped cilantro on top. It smells a bit fermented and funky, but also has a recognizable odor of Indian spices. The drink is thick, sour, and salty. The mouth is refreshed as if a foamy ocean wave crashed onto the gums with a dairy-based seafoam. The cilantro is a bright spot in the flavor, like lime in a Michelada. The chaas is also surprisingly herbal, beyond the cilantro alone. Yellow granules of turmeric float around, cradled in little jackets of thick dairy. 

I walk up to the bakery cases resplendent with neon coils of jalebi, crunchy kachori pillows, and pointed samosas to ask about the chaas. The cashier tells me that it’s good to drink after a meal for digestion, but another customer interrupts and tells me that you can’t buy real chaas here. In India, he says, there is real flavor from the cumin they sell on the streets. He states that the city of Haridwar has the best dairy. Some vendors of the refreshment even have cows with them at their stands. In his opinion, these are the freshest and tastiest cups of chaas to be drunk in the world. 

Bottled Yogurt Drink

After my cup of salty, herbal chaas I jump next door. This restaurant does not sell prepared dairy drinks, but has small bottles of commercial “yogurt drink.” As I walk to my next destination, I sip on this bottle. It is far saltier than the chaas and very thin. For my American palette, it is approaching the level of salinity with which I expect to rinse canker sores. My jaw muscles tighten due to the tartness. Without any prior experience with these drinks, I would guess that the average, cheddar cheese American would assume this milk was spoiled.

Sweet lassi drink India

I cross under the large highway overpass to Bombay Sweets & Snacks. The menu here offers mango lassi, sweet lassi, and salty lassi. I ask for the plain sweet lassi and receive a pure white, iced concoction that is thick enough to cause me some difficulties in drinking it through a straw. No spices. No herbs. This is like any sweet yogurt that you can buy at the supermarket, just thick and drinkable. 

The owner talks to me through the light of a heat lamp that is keeping freshly fried samosas warm. She is flanked by plastic wrapped trays of ladoo, rasmalai, and aloo vada. She tells me that in June and July, Indians have to quit their habit of drinking hot chai throughout the day. Instead, a cool lassi is the preferred beverage. Her salty version is minty and has black pepper in it. The sweet one, yogurt and sugar. 

Masala buttermilk foam
Masala buttermilk foam

Finally, after eating some samosas, I make my way to Taj Chaat House. The restaurant specialized in Jain vegetarianism. The Jains, the most ascetic of whom will not even swat at mosquitoes or flies out of reverence for life, consume milk, the waitress tells me. 

Here, the menu reads masala buttermilk. It contains ginger, chili, cilantro, and black pepper blended into a buttermilk. The drink arrives in the familiar white styrofoam cup, but has a greenish hue with a pale puce foam on top. Once again, this dairy drink tastes unlike the rest. It is highly sour, but the sour dairy is a vehicle for both a cool herbalism and an clear spicy piquancy. Somehow the combination is really refreshing, but the burn lingers.  

At this point, I’ve had my surfeit of dairy, but I’m confused. Is chaas the same as lassi? Is yogurt drink a translation of one of these? Where does masala buttermilk fit into the picture? The range of flavors–from sweet and creamy to herbal and sour to salty and spicy–is baffling for a lifelong skim milk drinker. 

I ask the cashier what the difference is. Chaas, she tells me, is thinner than lassi–but they are all different. While my understanding of the names and recipes of these drinks was more confused than when I started my day of dairy, my appreciation for the diversity of Indian milk beverages increased. Yogurt, buttermilk, milk–these things can be vehicles for a wide variety of flavors, all of which are refreshing. 

After five stops and about as many liters of dairy drink, I felt refreshed as if I was floating in a cool pale of chilled milk. As I walked back the way I came, the yogurt drinks sloshed together in my stomach, a confused mix of milk and masala, cilantro and pepper, and sugar and salt. 

Indian sweets

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