Roti, a shape-shifting global staple, takes a new form: convenience food

By Priya Krishna, The New York Times

Chef Peter Prime has been eating roti all his life. But asked to define what exactly roti is, he laughed and launched into a long-winded answer.

It could be a plain round of blistered bread, he said. Or the flaky version also known in his native Trinidad and Tobago as buss up shut. Or a floppy specimen stuffed with split peas, also known as dhal puri.

“We call everything roti,” said Prime with a laugh as he smeared a mixture of coconut oil and butter onto a paper-thin piece of dough in his home kitchen in Washington, D.C. It was destined to become buss up shut — or roti, depending on whom you ask.

Roti is one of the world’s most ubiquitous and shape-shifting foods, a round, unleavened bread of uncertain origin that has spread around the world, changing every time it reaches a new country, region or even household.

There are the simple wheat-flour-and-water versions found across India, t...