MUMBAI, Dec. 14 -- In Mumbai, nativist politics play out in several spheres. The most fraught is, of course, language, followed by history, cinema - and food. In the past, vada pao, poha and zunka bhakar have been pawns in electoral games. The Shiv Sena famously championed vada pao with its Shiv Vada Pav stalls in 2009. Two years later, perhaps before another election or political event, the Congress endorsed kanda poha. If the parties had a taste for irony, they might have realised the absurdity of their food fights - and of the idea of the native. It started with the vada pao. Mumbai's emblematic snack is said to have been dreamt up in a rush of nativist zeal by Ashok Vaidya, a street food vendor in Dadar in the 1960s. In 1966, he heeded Balasaheb Thackeray's call to Maharashtrians to become entrepreneurs to compete with the idli-dosa-making South Indians, who were prospering. Vaidya simply stuffed a vada, a widely eaten Maharashtrian snack, into a pao and lashed it with garlic chutney. Thus, the vada pao was born. The irony is that the key ingredients of the vada pao came from elsewhere. The potato was discovered by Spanish colonists in South America. They took the tuber to Europe and it is thought to have been brought to India by the Dutch in the 1800s. In fact, the Marathi word for potato, batata, is the same as the Portuguese word for potato. The chilli, which is fried and served as a condiment with the vada pao, was also part of the New World bounty. And for the pao, we owe thanks to Goan bakers, who in turn, learned to bake from Portuguese colonisers. So, is the vada pao native to Mumbai? Without a doubt, as long as our idea of native is not firmly rooted in soil but a loose notion that considers the various movements and influences that go into the making of things. Like the vada pao, there are so many dishes that evolved on the Mumbai table. One of the more surprising ones is mumbra, the weird and wonderful Pathare Prabhu banana cake. The sweet-savoury cake is made with Rajeli banana, rice rava, onion and either prawn or bombil. The ingredients are native to the Konkan coast but the baking technique is thought to have been acquired from the British. During the Raj, many Prabhus were employed in the colonial administration and are thought to have imbibed Western practices because of these connections. Early ovens were kilns heated with coal-fired sand. The culture of the Prabhus, a small community, often comes as a surprise as it is largely hidden. In contrast are the Parsis, a slightly larger bunch. The cuisine of the Mumbai Parsis reflects the community's Gujarati and Iranian origins, and its close relations with the West. The Time and Talents Club cookbook offers a sense of the aristocratic, twentieth century Parsi table, where one would find both salli chicken and avocado chiffon. The synthesis of the two worlds is perfectly expressed in the chutney fish, which is essentially patra ni machhi without the patra (banana leaf wrappings), baked with egg and cheese. Many of the city's early settlers were traders, who travelled across continents bringing with them foods and influences from elsewhere. For instance, Sindhi traders set up businesses in Hong Kong, Japan, the Caribbean, Spain and Gibraltar in the twentieth century. Perhaps it was during their time in Europe that pasta entered the Sindhi diet. The staple macroli patata, is macaroni cooked with potato, peas and spices. Think of aloo-matar with pasta. The other great mercantile community, the Gujaratis, use local ingredients to make versions of popular international foods like Thai curry, pizza and nachos. In the city, many Gujarati families have the practice of dal-bhat-rotli-shak (dal, rice, roti, vegetable) lunches and "fancy" dinners. A fancy dinner could be anything from chaat to enchiladas. The first lady of the global Gujarati kitchen was Tarla Dalal, who is considered India's Julia Child. She moved to Mumbai from Pune in 1966 after getting married and began her career with a cooking class for women. A prolific cookbook writer, she made a splash with her 1974 book The Pleasures of Vegetarian Cooking, in which she brought the world to the average Indian kitchen with recipes of asparagus rolls, Chinese noodles and corn cups alongside palak paneer. Did an experimental Gujarati maharaj invent the Gujju pizza? We will never know. Is the addictive composition of doughy base, ketchup, onion, capsicum and Amul cheese sold in every khau galli native? It clearly is, for like the natives of this migrant city, everything in it comes from everywhere....