If you find yourself in the beautiful coastal city of Mangalore, along with the wondrous sights, there are also gastronomical delights to tempt your palate. One such item is called the Gadbad (gadbad in Hindi literally means ‘mess’ while this name probably came from the Kannada language usage of the slang word gadbad meaning ‘something amiss’ or ‘gadibidi’ meaning a person in a hurry!).

There are a couple of different stories on how this ice cream dessert came about.
Version One: In the words of Prabhakar Kamath, the businessman who serves the Gadbad in his famous Ideal Ice Cream Parlor in Mangalore (thanks to uppercrustindia) – ‘And I called it Gadbad because the ice-cream parlour workers could not mix and match the flavour properly. In Kannada, we used to say they make gadidbidi… which means error. That’s how the name stuck’
Version Two: Another story lays its origins in Udupi when the cook at a restaurant came up with this recipe in order to ‘cool down’ a disgruntled customer. 

No matter what it’s origin is, this complete-meal-in-a-dessert is oh-so-yum-satisfying! 

It is a mix-and-match ice cream dessert – a vertical sundae of sorts along with a slew of fresh and dry fruits as well an assortment of nuts and some jelly topped off with a cherry (and/or whipped cream). And the trick is in the layering, and how you are supposed to eat it – dip a long spoon all the way through to the bottom of the glass and scoop up everything you get along the way and eat it all together. Each bite ends up scooping a different mix so surprises in every bite. 

And yes, we ate this icecream on one of our visits to India and we all loved it – next up, making it at home and if you want to try it out, you can look at Beth Hensperger’s version of this ice cream here – the really cool (pun intended) ‘The Making of Gadbad’ image below is also thanks to Beth.

Image attribution/copyright: Beth Hensperger @ Not Your Mother’s Cookbook

One more mention for the letter G that is already a checkmark for my theme this year – recreating childhood memories with my children – is Golu. This has repeated mentions on my blog and a search proves that! and here are images from a couple of our Golu displays over the years.

Signing off on the letter G as I continue on the #AtoZChallenge and #UltimateBloggingChallenge