This is life ! (Ei to Jibon!): September 2009

WEST BENGAL: GEOGRAPHY

West Bengal is strategically placed with three international frontiers - Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. A hinge between the bulk of Indian territory and the north-east of the country, West Bengal is located at 21o31' and 27o14' North Latitude at the head of the Bay of Bengal and 86o35' and 89o53' East Longitude, with the Tropic of Cancer running through it.

The great Himalayas start a distance of only 300 miles from the Bay of Bengal and the coastal tropical rain forest, Sundarbans.

BENGAL AT A GLANCE.

At the time of Partition Bengal was spilt into East and West Bengal. East Bengal became the eastern wing of Pakistan and later, with the disintegration of that country, Bangladesh. West Bengal became a state of India with Calcutta as the capital. The state is long and narrow, running from the delta of the Ganges river system at the Bay of Bengal in the south to the heights of the Himalayas at Darjeeling in the north.

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HISTORY : Referred to as Vanga in the Mahabharata, this area has a long history that predates the Aryan invasions of India. It was part of the Aryan invasions of India. It was part of the Maurayan Empire in the 3^rd century before being overrun by the Guptas. For three centuries around 800 AD The Pala dynasty controlled a large area based on Bengal and including parts of Orissa, Bihar and mordern Bangaladesh.

Bengal was brought under Muslim control by Qutab-ud-din, first of the sultans of Delhi, at the end of the 12^th century. Following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Bengal an independent Muslim state.

Britain had established a trading post in Calcutta in 1698, which quickly prospered. Sensing rich pickings, Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of Bengal, came down from his capital at Mushirdabad and easily took Calcutta in 1756. Clive defeated him the following year at the Battle of Plassey, helped by the treachery of Siraj-ud-daula's uncle,

Mir Jafar who commanded the greater part of the nawab's army. He

was rewarded by succeeding his nephew as nawab but after the battle of Buxar in 1764, the British took full control of Bengal.

CALCUTTA :

Densely populated and polluted,Calcutta suffers from lot of drawbacks. Calcutta has been plagued by chronic labour unrest resulting in a decline of productivity capacity. Despite all these drawbacks Calcutta is city with a soul. It is the city, which is the seat of art and cultural developments. All greats like Rabidranath Tagore, Bankim chandra, Vidyasagar, Vivekananda, Satayjit Chatterjee, Kalidas were from this very Bengal. Great freedom fighters like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Chittranjan, Khudiram Bose were born here. Most of the world-renowned personalities like Mother Teresa to Amartya Sen belongs to the land of Bengal. Bengal welcomes all with its charm and gracious Hospitality.

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HISTORY : Calcutta isn't an ancient city like Delhi, with its impressive relics of the past. In fact, it's largely a British creation, which dates only some 300 years and was the capital of British India until the beginning of this century. In 1686, the British abanonded Hooghly, their trading post 38 km up the Hooghly River from present day Calcutta, and moved downriver to three small villages- Sutanati, Govindapur and Kalikata. Calcutta takes its name from the last of the three tiny settlements. Job Charnock, An English merchant who married a Brahmin's widow whom he dissuaded to becoming a sati, was the leader of the British merchant who made the move. At first the post was not a great success and was abandonent on a number of occasions, but 1696 a fort was laid out infront of the present -day BBD Bagh (Dalhousie Square) and in 1698, Aurangzeb's grandson gave the British official the permission to occupy the villages.

Calcutta then grew steadily until 1756, when Siraj-ud-duala, the Nawab of Mushirdabad, attacked the town. Most of the British inhabitants escaped, but those captured were packed into underground cellars, where during the night, most of them suffocated in what become known as 'the black hole of Calcutta'.

Early in 1757, the British, under Clive of India, retook Calcutta and made peace with the Nawab. Later the same year, however, Siraj-ud-duala sided with the French and was defeated at the Battle of Plassey, a turning point in the British- Indian history. A much stronger fort was built in Calcutta and the town become the capital of British India.

Much of Calcutta enduring development took place between 1780 and 1820. Later in the 19^th century, Bengal became an important Centre in the stuggle for Indian independence, and this was a major reason for the decision to transfer the capital to Delhi in 1911. Loss of political power did not alter Calcutta's economic control, and the city continued to prosper after World War II.

Partition affected Calcutta more than any thing else. Bengal and the Punjab where the Hindu and the Muslim populations were living in harmony, a drawing line was drawn between them. The result in Bengal was that Calcutta, the jute procuring and export centre of India, became a city without a hinterland, while across the border in Bangladesh, the jute was grown without anywhere to process or export it.

The massive influx of refugees, combined with India's own postwar population explosion, led to Calcutta becoming an International urban horror story.

Calcutta has many places of interests like the Indian Museum (biggest in India), the maidan, Fort William, Ochterlony Monument, the famous cricket ground

Eden Gardens, St Paul's Cathedral, Birla Planetarium, Victoria Memorial, Kali temple, Horticultural garden (biggest in India), Botanical garden, Howrah Bridge, Marble palace, Belur math and offcourse the New Market - the biggest shopping complex where almost anything under the sun could be purchased.

New Market has also the largest wholesale market for vegetables both grown locally and got from different states-specially Nasik and Pune. Here also, one gets to see whole carcass of beef, mutton, pigs being skinned and jointed into huge cuts ready for being sold as wholesale or retail cuts. One also has a separate fish market where various kinds of fishes, both locally grown in bheries (inland fish farming where different species of fishes are cultivated together, at the same time in a cultured environment so as to give a higher yield.), and also fresh catches from the rivers and the seas are all got here and then segregated. One is amazed by the total quantity of daily catches that are got in the market if one goes to the market early in the morning.

PHILOSOPHY OF FOOD : Just as man is said to be made up of the three gunas or quality which are reflected in his appearance and his appetites, food too is divided into three kinds. Satvic food is light, bland, usually vegetarian and white and gold in colour. The finest rice mixed with ghee(clarified butter), milk and the milk products, honey and fruits- fresh and sun-dried - are the foods for ascetics. Rajasic food is gold and red in colour, consists of meat, fish, eggs, wines and beer and are supposed to arouse passion in kings and warriors. Tasmasic food is red and black in colour, consists of flesh of small animals, pork and beef, scaleless fish and food cooked the day before.

The Brahmins at the apex of the socio-religious order are largely vegetarian and eat satvic foods. But the Bengali Brahmin found the flavour of Bengal's sweet water fish irresistible and fell to temptation and called the fish as 'fruit of the ocean'.

Food is classified into kancha (uncooked or unripe) and paka (cooked or ripe). Anna is the sanskrit word for rice which when cooked is bhaat in Bengali and is a central fact of Bengali cultural existence.

Dairy products became increasingly a part of the trappers and gatherers diet. Paramana was among the first food and the name given to rice and milk boiled together and has been the traditional offering to god for thousand of years.

Sweetened milk with sugar cane, the strength-giving properties of paramana makes it the auspicious food on important occasions. Popularly called payeesh, it is the solid food a child is offered at the annaprasan, the rice eating ceremony.

The vivid picture of the kitchen in medieval Bengali literature collected in Mangal Kavyas. A woman's culinary activity makes her a participant in the sacrificial aspect in which cooking is closely connected to religion. Preparation of a meal is also linked to Karma (desire). A young woman must study the rules of culinary erotica and develop them into an art to win over husband's attention- a universal feminine strategy. The best role model for a Bengali woman is Draupadi as it is believed that she used to keep all her five husbands happy and none used to return from her kitchen hungry.

The rules of do's and don'ts governing personal cleanliness and when to eat was effectively reinforced by religious sanctions and celestial occurrences. Bathing and changing into clean clothes dried

in the wind were perquisites for the daily puja. Women did not enter the kitchen at all times and before doing so head bath was mandatory. Before a solar or a lunar eclipse, the hearth is not lit. Food, cooked or uncooked is not eaten. After an eclipse, the kitchen is washed before it resumes its normal operations. The reasons given are that the absence of the main illuminating body - the sun and the moon- it is believed that contamination by insects and other harmful bodies may go unnoticed.

Calcutta is the rice bowl that stretches Eastward from China to Japan. The major festivals centre around rice. The goddess Durga's annual visit is the city's biggest festival. She comes riding on a lion with weapons in her ten hands. Another popular representation of Durga is Annapurna or Annada, the giver of rice. There are two kinds of rice depending on the method of dehusking the paddy - atap or sun-dried and siddha or parboiled rice. Each kind has many varieties known by different names and used for different occasions. Among the sun-dried varieties grown mainly in the adjoining district of Burdwan, are the small-grained scented Kamini, the fragrant Gopalbhog and Gobindabhog. Gopal and Gobindabhog are affectionate appellations of the god Krishna. Most people here are familiar with the famous basamati rice which is best used in pulao.

In Vedic times, dal is mentioned and identified by the word supa, similar to the English word soup. The cook was called supakar. Dal was the main source of vegetable protein and is the second most staple diet of Bengal.

The philosophy of food also gets deep entrenched into everyday lifestyle where food is still being used as prophylactic and antiseptic. Kalaidal or biuli dal are used as a contraceptive, and dumurer dalna (fig stew) was given to diabetics. Turmeric was used as an antiseptic and honey with ghee proves to be a throat soother and a laxative.The Bengali learnt to season his foods with many more spices that became available and he readily devised their own particular order, proportions and combinations in using the aromatic imports of asafoetida, cumin and saffron.

BENGALI CULTURE: ITS HISTORICAL HERITAGE WITH ITS INFLUENCE ON FOOD.

If you ask a Bengali for the shortest description of Bengali food, the answer is likely to be rice and fish, unless he is a vegetarian, in which case he may say subji (veg.) and rice. An invitee to a Bengali house for an elaborate, well-cooked meal includes varieties of fish, vegetables and meat, with off course sweets.

In this fertile, tropical delta that serves as a basin for innumerable rivers, rivulets and tributaries, it is rice that has been the common sustaining staple from pre-Aryan times until today. Thus the commonest way of enquiring if a person has had a meal, especially lunch is to ask if he has "taken rice". Mostly a basic

Bengali meal will consist of rice, pulses, vegetables, fish and sweets.

But once you get into the details of cooking, a starling polarization of ideas and approach begins to emerge. To talk, to someone from West Bengal, a Ghoti, he is likely to tell, that the uncivilized Bangals, from East Bengal know nothing about cooking, and that they ruin the food by drowning it in oil and spices, that they eat half-cooked fish and even the best of fish can be ruined by their peculiar habit of adding bitter to vegetables.

For, there part the East Bengali or the Bangal would decline, that the Ghotis are the greatest philistines on earth, who can cook nothing, without making it cloyingly sweet, or render all their dishes bland and colourless, and that they are hardly true Bengalis, for they prefer to eat wheat – flour chapaties instead of rice, especially at dinner. This distinct polarization is very, very dominant and vibrant especially in joint-families where Grandmother and Grandfather holds the crux for the family.

But if you have the mind, the heart, the taste to explore, you will find an enormous variety in a cuisine where richness and subtlety are closely interoven. With an array of ingredients ranging from water lilies and water hyacinth or even potatoes and gourd peel (Yes! Only the peel), to fish, meat, crab, tortoise and prawn, the Bengali has also devised a combination of spices, that’s very delicate and subtle. From the simplest mashed potato and mustard oil, green chillies or fried, crushed red chillies, raw onion and salt, to the exquisite ‘prawn malai curry’ to ‘bhapa Ilish’ – Bengali takes an equal delight in whatever he happens to have.

The gentle rotation of the seasons, the garnering of the earth’s resources have generated a large number of local rituals, some secular indicated in Bengali proverb of ‘thirteen festivals in twelve months’. For the pleasure of savouring the taste of fish, he needed to have his portion of rice. The spectra of an empty with no rice is dreadful to the Bengali, mind that he cannot even bring himself to articulate it. To indicate that the stock of rice is "increasing" – almost hoping the avert bad luck by the use of opposite word.

To the rural Hindi Bengali, rice is almost synonymous with Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and prosperity. Even today, many sophisticated urban Bengalis, who don’t directly participate in the cultivation or processing of rice, finds it irrationally difficult, to waste a single grain of rice. Even, when the portion of the plate is too much, they will try to finish it because wasting rice is almost tantament to insulting the goddess.

By medieval times, Bengalis literature began to contain elaborate description of available and cooked food, thus unfolding a picture of a leisurely lifestyle among a certain class who loved good food and devised many elaborate and subtle ways of cooking it. The noticeable thing was that most of them sweet-water or brackish-water fish, not any marine varieties – and the preference still remains.

The dual entity of rice – fish that is at the heart of Bengali cuisine is reflected in a thousand and one ways in the rituals and ceremonies of the Bengalis. Unhusked rice, called Dhan, is an inevitable part of any ceremonial offering to the gods. In parts of West Bengal there is a custom, that when a new bride drives with her husband to his house, she is welcomed with a platter of offerings containing dhan. For her part, she would have to hold a live fish in her left hand. This fish would later be released into the family fishpond to breed and multiply. During the ceremony of eating the shadh or derived foods, which takes place towards the end of pregnancy, probably based on the assumption that if the mother has no unsatisfied carvings left she will produce a healthy child, rice and fish are the compulsory items. From the preferences of living it is

not such a big transition to the preferences of the dead. The spirits of ancestors are appeased at funerals by a final offering called the pinda, cooked rice and fish mixed together in a lump.

Apart from rice and fish, Bengalis have always taken advantage of the green vegetables and tubers that grow all over the land. Historians, base their conclusions on a study of linguistics, think that modern vegetables like aubergines, several types of gourds and taro, as well as the bitters leaves of the jute plant, figured in the pre – Aryan Bengali diet. Even, the rice plant and the banana tree has strong mythical significance in Bengali life. A young specimen, is always placed outside the front door, together with a green coconut sitting a top an earthern pitcher, when a weeding or any other auspicious ceremony takes place.

But, one of the striking difference of staple between ancient and contemporary times is the absence of any kind of pulses in the food of ancient Bengal. The Charyapada, the earliest example of Bengali literature dating back approximately to the eleventh century, depict fishing and hunting for game, and mention rice, sugar-cane and many other crops. But there is no reference to the kind of dal. It is only in post-fifteenth-century literature that several kinds of dal, as well as ways of cooking them, begins to be mentioned. It seems that in this respect ancient Bengal had more in common with South-east Asia and China, where pulses are virtually unknown than the Bengal of today. Even now, most of dals consumed in West Bengal comes from other states in India.

Apart, from the natural cropping factor, the super abundant supply of fish made dal as a source of protein unnecessary.

A stable agricultural way of life also meant the presence of cattle. Milk and milk products become an important part of Bengali food from very early times. Apart, from being drunk by itself, milk was often served at the end of a simple meal, when it was mixed with a little cooked rice and white sugar or date palm sugar. In rural households nothing could be more welcome symbol of plenty than the cows standing in the bynes and the pitchers of foaming milk they produced.

Yogurt too, has been an important part of daily food, especially in the summer when the thought of aid the digestion. Aryan culture attributed auspiciousness to it. Well wishing mothers or sisters make a tikka or dot on the forehead with yoghurt whenever the child is setting out for an important undertaking. Unsweetened yoghurt was used in cooking from fairly early times. The Naishadhacharita, probably written before the Sena dynasty took over in Bengal, mentions a dish spiced with mustard and yogurt served at royal wedding. The Muslims later used yogurt as a wine substitute. They developed a drink called barhani, which is yogurt mixed water and whipped with salt and ground pepper. This continues to be served even today at Muslim feasts where a lot of rich meats and pulaos are supposed to be digested with the aid of the barhani. Many of their meat dishes require a little marinating in yogurt and the Korma and the nigella seeds of Bengal.

The long period of Muslim rule from the eleventh century to the demise of the Mughal Empire and the take-over by the British in the mid-eighteenth century firmly established Islam as the second most important religion of Bengal. Mass conversion took place and the lower castes of Hindu society whose members had been oppressed and exploited by the higher castes under the well-entrenched forces of orthodox Brahminism.The remnants of the Buddhist who had servived the tyranny of aggressive Hinduism under the Sena dynasty, were also tempted to accept the faith of the Muslim rulers. This process continued until, by the later half of the nineteenth century, Muslims contributed almost half the population of Bengal. In northern and eastern Bengal they were the majority, but they had little besides their strength of number. Land, power,

good education and professional opportunities were all mostly for the Hindus. This inequality and geographical concentration saved the seeds of discontent, which eventually led to East Bengal becoming East Pakistan, when the Indian subcontinent gained independence in 1947.

Culinarily , the impact of Muslim cooking was at first mostly to be seen among the leisured and affluent classes, especially the Nawabs who represented the Mughal empire in Bengal. But, however restricted initially, it led to development of a Bengali Muslim cuisine of Northern India and the Nizami cuisine of Hyderabad. It is less rich and subtler than both of them, tending to substitute yogurt and lemon juice for cream and solid kheer, of other Muslim cooking. Beef and chicken were also introduced into the diet; the former a bitter bone of contention even today, the latter becoming a part of the Hindu households, one of the best-known specialties developed by the Bengali Muslims is the Rezala made with Khasi(castrated goat), in which lemon, yogurt, milk and spices and chillies. Fragrant and sharp, the chillies produce an uplifting sensation for a potato cloyed with an excess of ghee or other ground spices.

The last Nawab of Bengal lost his throne and his life after the Battle of Plassey in June 1757. But the two centuries of British presence in Bengal not really made much difference to the way urban or rural Bengal continued to eat. In common with the rest of India, the colonial presence have resulted in an Anglo-Indian cuisine which remained confined by and large to the ruling race and the mixed breed of Anglo-Indians. The one noticeable contribution this had made to the everyday Bengali food is the inclusion of two extra ordinary misnomers, chop and cutlet.the English words, which have now become Bengali, were probably adopted by the cooks who worked in British households to denote their crossbreed. The chop today means a round or oval potato cake, with a fish or meat stuffing, which is dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, then fried crisply. The cutlet, which can meat, chicken or prawn, usually means one of those elements seasoned lightly and pounded to form a long flat,oval which is then coated and fried the same way. From the kitchen it did not take long for these two items to end up in urban eating joints, and there are many shops in Bengali towns that specializes in ‘chop-cutlet’ as a snack outlet. Mustard, that is inevitably served with these is not the Colman’s mustard favoured by the British; it is Bengali Kasundi, mixture of pungent mustard paste, mustard oil, lemon juice or sour green mango.

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Eating and Serving Bengali Foods.

The Bengalis are perhaps the greatest food lovers in the Indian subcontinent. A long leisurely meal of many items which requires long hours of labour and ingenuity in the kitchen to be produced, has been as much a part of Bengali culture as ceremonious eating in France. The traditional way of serving food is on the floor where individual pieces of carpet, called asans, would be spread for each person to sit on. Infront of this seat would be placed a large platter, made of bell metal or silver depending on the family’s economic status. Around this platter would be arranged a number of small metal or silver bowls in which portions of dal, vegetable, fish, meat, chutney, and dessert would be served. In the center of the platter there would be a small mound of piping hot rice flanked by vegetable fritters, wedges of lime, whole green chillies and perhaps a bit of pickle. Finally, in the center of the mound, a little hole would be made to pour a spoonful of ghee or classified butter to flavour the initial mouthful of rice.

The star of the eating scene was inevitably the male: husband, father, son, son-in-law and others. The women would move around, anxiously serving extra helpings or directing the servants to bring them. Some of the women would sit and ply palm-leaf fans to cool the heated male as the pleasure of intake intensified. But, in traditional homes, there would always be the secondary-eating scene where the women could finally sit down and enjoy their meal. But, the best portion of fish and meat would be gone, devoured by the superior sex, but that did not detract significantly from their enjoyment. The long-establish female tradition of savoring the ultimate pleasure from concoctions of vegetables and fish bones or succlent stalks cooked with tiny shrimps of various kinds of pickles and chutneys is rooted in this practice of making the best of secondary resources.

The approach to food is essentially tactile as in all of India; Bengalis eat everything with their fingers. Neither table sliver nor chopsticks are used as aid to convey food to the mouth. What, after

all, could be better than one’s own sensitive fingers to pick out the bones of fish like hilsa or koi? Quick apart from the functional aspects, the fingers also provide an awareness of which becomes as important as that felt by the tongue. The fingers appreciate all the various mashed vegetables or the different kinds of rice or varieties of fish we eat before they enter the mouth.

Each individual has a peculiar style of dealing with his food. Some people pick up their rice and accompaniments very daintily, their fingers barely touching the food. This is supposed to be the style of elite. Other prefers to mash their rice in their fingers before mixing it with the other items. Yet, other will forms balls of rice and other items in their palms before popping it in their mouth. Their mothers inevitably feed children in this way. And then there are those hearty, somewhat course eaters who can be seen licking their palms, all the way to their wrist. The other peculiarity about the Bengali-eating scene is the unashamed accumulation of remnants.

Since succlent vegetables stalks, fish bones and fish heads, meat and chicken bones are all meticulously chewed until a drop of juice is left inside, heaps of chewed remnants, besides each plate are an inevitable part of a meal. The custom of immediately and scrupulously wiping clear the part of the floor – now the table – where food has been eaten is probably related to the presence of such remnants.

Bengalis associate too much of there foods with festivals and a popular saying goes that Bengalis has 13 festivals in 12 months. Hence, all the year round, something to do with food is always in air. All the major Bengali festivals (household) are held in the dalan, which serves as informal gathering, place for the family and old friends. The flooring of the dalan is quite artistically painted or alpana draw, incredibly with flowers, fruits, leaves and couch shells drawn with a rag dipped in rice flour butter. Well, after the event is over, they lingered as a memento of festivity.

But apart from festivities a routine of daily shopping for fish and vegetables, grinding of spices, cutting of vegetables and cooking of rice, dal, macher jhal makes up for the day. Vegetables are got from the market, with extreme scrutiny, as to there freshness, shape, size and off course the price by the head of the family, most usually early in the morning. If the vegetables were not the right shape, the dish would never taste, such was the long flat slices for the fish jhol; tiny cubes for the dry bhaji spiced with salt, dry red chillies and a pinch of panchphoron; the combination of five whole spices so dear to the Bengali nose and potato; slanting but small pieces for the mixed vegetables, halved for the meat and or chicken curry, quarters or whole new potatoes for the cooked slowly in a thick spicy sauce. Another quite striking fact of Bengali household, is being the absence of refrigerators, as most of the food that are cooked for the day are consumed in that day itself, and any left-over are had early-in the morning as panta-bhaat. The very, idea of not having a refrigerator is to buy fresh vegetables and fishes from the market, which are in abundance. Bengali culture has a set of rules which is every much intertwined with a set of rules regarding food habits, called ‘achar-bichar’. It was a set of taboos centered around the basic item, the pot of rice. Anything that touched the pot or grains of cooked rice, became entho, and had to be washed to be reusable. Serving spoons, glasses, serving dishes of vegetables, even hands and mouth, all had to be rinsed after contact. Even a sick-person is

not allowed to eat rice, or anything that touched cooked rice, while sitting on bed, for that would mean washing the bed-clothes and sprinkling the holy water of the Ganga on the wooden frame! And, in keeping with the irrationality of the whole system, uncooked rice as well as puffed rice or popped rice was not considered entho. Bengali, is probably one of the few languages that has two different words for raw and cooked rice: - chaal and bhaat.

With the influence of urbanization, now the Bengali households have chairs and dinning tables. But still few years ago dinning was essential on floors, with few asans (mats) spread in a row and banana leaves (in festivity) or the brass plates laid in front of the guests. Before the guest sat down, the leaves would be embellished in the corners with a bit of salt, and a wedge of lime, fried aubergines split lengthwise in the middle, and with the stem still attached, a little dab of fried spinach and some fried potatoes. As the guest sat down, the serving would begin, each server carrying brass buckets in which the cooks had heaped the food. Hot rice, cauliflower and potato dalna, the moong dal cooked with the heads of carp, followed by the carp kalia and the fries. Then came the meat curry served with those flaky, puffy luchis. And, finally the dessert or ‘misti’, with ‘Rossogollas’ almost being compulsory! It is a real feast to watch the little drama that inevitably resulted with some of the guests, who really loved to eat but had to pretend, for the sake of good manners, that they did not. Whenever seconds or thirds helpings were offered, they would extend both hands over the banana leaf, look panic stricken and deny vehemently that they couldn’t eat another morsel. The server, who used to be in dhoti and gangee (vest) with a gamcha (muslin rag) tied to his waist, would off course refuse to accept this and threaten to pour the food over his hands until, good manners having being observed, the guest would remove their hands in mock dismay and allow the food to be served and consumed with relish. After the meat came the chutney, a common winter favourite, and hot crisp salty papars. These were supposed to cleanse the mouth and prepare you for desserts.

The most important aspect of a joint family in Bengal is eating together, food from same handi (cooking pot) prepared in the same henshel (hearth). The bunch of keys to the bhandar ghar

(storeroom) was secured tied to the sari of the ginni or chotelaine – controller of household. Depending on the size and station of family, there were one or more storerooms. The staple rice, was stored for the year in enormous terracotta jars and allowed to age.

Pure golden mustard oil, the pungent Bengali cooking medium is stored in zinc lined tins. Ghee (clarified butter) was usually stored in large glass jars. Spices are kept fresh in glazed brown and white jars. Also, some identical jars were used for storing chutneys and pickles.

Before cold storage days, some of the shelves were lined with a layer of sand on which the new potatoes were laid in neat rows. During the mango season spaces was found for baskets of these summer delights from the mango orchards of North Bengal.

Clay pots of molasses, casein and homemade sweetmeats were suspended on giant hooks from the ceiling safe from marauders of all kinds.

Times have changed and the storerooms have shrunk to a cupboard, tucked away in a corner of an apartment in multi-storied complex anywhere in the concrete jungle. The contents remain the same on a diminishing scale with addition of varieties of patent sauces, pastas, soup cubes and packets of pre-cooked foods.

Use of brass, copper and bell metal has gradually replaced the lighter aluminum until health hawks began to pontificate on the hazardrous reaction of the containers and contents. The convenience of packed spice powders has almost silenced the gourmet’s cry for the finesse of freshly ground spices. But, die-hards insist on hard-grinding mustard with chilli and a little sugar and salt to dispel the bitterness and bring out the real punch. While, food processors and blenders have wiped away the tears from chopping and grinding onions, the twin corner stone of most Calcutta kitchens is the sil-nora.

It is really amazing that in a mega-city at the end of twentieth century heads pop out of the windows whenever the cries of bikriwala (rag-and-bone-man), the quilt-maker, the knife-grinder and the grinding stone cutter are heard in the street below. The stone cutter re-notches the geometric patterns and the lucky fish motif worn smooth by use of the heavy sil, the pentagonal stone slab. The Nora is the smooth black stone moving partner. The inseparable pair is often handed drawn from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law. With the nuclear family gaining ground, a housewife setting up her home will take along an experienced matron to buy the best silnora at the fair.

Calcutta’s annual religious melas (fairs) are among the many rural vestiges that the city will never outgrow. Many of the villages in West Bengal are identified by a particular craft, usually utilization and always beautiful. Crafts persons come into setup shop at the charak mela at Poddoppukur in South Calcutta and on Beadon street in the north. The accent is on traditional kitchenware of stone, clay, wood and bamboo. Old wooden chaki-belan (round party-board and rolling pin) are replaced. And one of the crazy item of these fairs or melas is munching of bhajas, starting from begun bhaja, to papor bhaja and all sorts of varied bhajas.

In traditional joint families, the ginni sits cross-legged before her own personal boti. The cutting of vegetables is an important facet of her preparation. Each dish, demands that its vegetables be cut in a particular shape. Gourd, brinjal, wax gourd and potatoes must be cut uniformly cubed for chhenkki, quartered for jhole and halved horizontally for dalna, with a mental calculation, as to how much for jhole, and how much for bhaja.

SEASONAL INFLUENCES.

The land of these food-loving characters, Bengal is made up of the Indian state of West Bengal and the sovereign country of Bangladesh (formerly East Bengal or East Pakistan), altogether an area of 228,000 sq.km. (88,000 sq. miles). Most of the terrain is flat, delta land, crisscrossed with rivers, with a few hills especially North Bengal and forests dotted here and there. Parts of North and bordered by the Himalayas and the Western part of neighboring State of Bihar. Overwhelmingly, though this is a flat green land, most of it cultivated and divided into fields, primarily growing rice, the staple food crop. In the Northern districts, of Bangladesh and West Bengal, the land is dried, a red laterite soil replacing the alluvial richness of the central areas. To the east where Bengal slopes down to meet the Bay of Bengal are the famous mangrove swamps, the Sunderbans, home of the Royal Bengal tigers and the huge gharial or Bengali crocodiles. Like the rain forests of Brazil, or the Evergreens of Florida ,(which they resemble in appearance), the Sunderbans are one of the few places where the mushy, beauty and terror of nature are still to be felt. Yet, men can coexist with nature, for these mangrove swamps are the home of a whole community of boat people who live by the catch they haul in from the Bay of Bengal.

The rivers of Bengal have served many purposes in sustaining life and prosperity. The great rivers – the Ganga, Padma, Meghna, Jamuna or Brahmaputra, Damodar, Ajay, Tista, Karnaphuli and others – have always been conduits for goods moving from one place to another, while the Bay of Bengal has provided a natural entry for the incoming seen trade. Their fascination has been perennial, whether in the imagination of the poet or the mind of ordinary peasant. Through the seasons their mood and appearance change dramatically. Attenuated in summer, they swell with life and energy with the monsoon rains and often become forces of destructive fury, only to be tranquil fullness under an autumn sky. In winter the waters start shrinking, yielding the best possible catch of many kinds of fish for the food lovers of Bengal. Though the raging fury of a great river in flood during the height of the monsoon strikes terror in the hearts of the people, those same floods leave rich deposits of silt when they withdraw, replenishing the earth which has been over-cultivated. Sometimes shoals of land appear in the middle of the river and traditionally people have fought and committed crimes over the control of this fertile plain of land and to Bengal acquiring the reputation of a golden granary in later years – ‘Sonar Bangla’ by Rabindra Nath Tagore.

The Bengali calendar is a solar one based on the six seasons – two months for each of Grishma, Summer; Barsha, Monsoon; Sharat and Hemanta, early and late Autumn; Sheet, Winter and Basanta, Spring. The year begins with the month of Baisakh in mid-April, when the heat of summer is on full-blast. The whole landscape looks parched, the leaves of the trees start dropping and any cultivated plot that is not irrigated seems for less. Of course in terms of felt temperatures and other natural manifestations, spring and summer overlap considerably. The heat of the summer is palpable even in March. The most important season in Bengal is Barsha, the monsoon, which lasts well into what is supposed to be early autumn. The torrential rains infuse the parched earth with new life and wash away the dust and grime of previous months. Everything glows with green vibrancy and the life-sustaining rice crop is planted, transplanted and lovingly nurtured throughout the season. Nothing can be more beautiful than stretches of emerald green rice fields under the slate-grey monsoon sky. The rivers assume their full majesty at this time, and rush along at full spate towards the sea. The autumn is a quite time when the excessive moisture of the late monsoon starts to evaporate and the golden harvest stands ready in the fields. This is followed by the slow aridity of winter when balmy temperatures makes the tropical delta a desirable resort.

Summer – Grishma :-

Food in a Bengali household takes on the summer pattern fairly early in the spring. Daytime temperatures are hot enough for the housewife to buy and serve ‘cool’ items to her family. They would serve vegetables like lau, white gourd, or okra or potol, the small striped gourd or parwal, in other parts of India, during the summer, with the these will keep the body cool. Meat, eggs, onions and garlic, on the other hand, are studiously avoided. Ginger, though, is encouraged because it is believed to increase appetite and aid digestion if taken before meals with a little salt. Ayurvedic practitioners which some local physicians practices will recommend potals, cucumbers and the two varieties of bitter gourd, karola and uchche. Neembegun – where small dices of aubergines are fried with the leaves of neem trees is said to have anti-chicken pox properly. This association of healthful properties with a bitter taste and the subsequent appreciation of that bitterness as a taste is a Bengali trait that outsiders finds incomprensiible. And especially for lunch menus during summer sukto (a stew of seasonal vegetables, with bitterish in taste) is an integral part of every household menu. And, among the other dishes which makes up the menu, are Moong dal, Masoor dal and lemon, Macher jhol, lau-chingiri, lau-ghanto, Rezela and Aloo posto being the favourites.

Barsha – Monsoon :-

During the last few days of summer, each longer than the previous one, the endurance of man, land, animals and vegetation is stretched to the breaking point. As the people of Bengal live through this scorching humid hell, waiting for Barsha – (Monsoon) to find some comfort, the first day of Barsha is generally honoured with the eating of a special meal, made enjoyable by the drastic drop in temperature created by the rains and cloud-covered sky. The most well-known Bengali dish associated with the monsoon is Khichuri, rice and dal cooked together and panchphoran and ghee. This is the housewife’s response to sudden arrival of monsoon rains or heavy rain at any other time of the year. Though simple, it is a superb dish that requires care and does not survive neglect or in attention and probably one of the oldest dishes in the Bengali repertoire. From, the beggars, who begged for their food, to various religious orders that observed a strict simplicity of diet, countless people have depended on khichuri for there balanced diet. Without any trimmings, it can be even rice and dal boiled together in a pot. Slum dwellers in Indian cities can still be seen doing that on the sidewalks. With the delicate, refinements of certain spices, it became a delicacy. After 200 years of colonial rule, the British also took it back with them as kedgree. Like the curry, kedgeree probably was a contribution of the Indian (often Muslims) chef working in the British officers’ home. The simplest form of khichuri can also be used as a porridge course.

There are of course many kinds of khichuris, depending on what kind of dal is being used. The consistency may be thin, thick or dry and fluffy like a pilaf, plain or with seasonal winter vegetables like new potatoes, green peas and cauliflower added to the basic rice-dal mixture. The one constant factor is the use of atap rice, usually of the short-grained variety. Although khichuri is almost a complete meal in itself, most Bengalis would be disappointed not to have certain well-loved accompaniments; slices of aubergines or halves of patols deep-fried, papors and red chillies. Among the other monsoon vegetables that Bengalis love are

varieties of kachu or taro, pumpkin, kumro, green like shashni shak, puishak, kachu shak. The monsoon is also associated with the ilish, called hilsa by the British, that Bengalis have given the name ilish guri, the hilsa’s life-cycle is something like that of salmon. After starting life in the sea, the fish comes to spawn, in the estuarine waters where the rivers meets the Bay of Bengal, and slowly moves upwards along the rivers to the northern regions of India, in the Hooghly basin, growing in size upto 2.5 kg. Many of the hilsa caught during the monsoon are big with roe, which is a delicacy in its own right and considered a cavair of tropics, though the Padma specimens of Bangladesh are considered to be an absolute delicacy.

The monsoon is the most dramatically beautiful season in West Bengal and the emotional Bengali Express himself through, recitations, songs and eating. Football is another monsoon madness and office attendance is even thin on the afternoons when two are rival teams. Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, kick-off on the Maidan. Victory for East Bengal means a run on hilsa as fans get together to celebrate with shorsey ilish (Hilsa in Mustard). Prawns hit the high-water menu when Mohun Bagan wins.

Sharat – Hemanta – Autumn :-

As an old Bengali proverb says that if the Kash has started flowering, you know that rains are over and the autumn has begun. More than spring, it is this season, compounded of early autumn or Sharat and late autumn or Hemanta, is a time of hope. One more monsoon has been lived through. One morning harvest awaits the grower of rice. In the countryside the white, broom like kash flowers grow besides the ponds and rivers mirroring blue skies with fleecy white clouds.

It’s the season of festivity. First too come is Lord Biswakarma (god of tools) in which day fire is not lighted in any household. So, all the foods are cooked a day prior and hard. Next, to come is goddess Durga – goddess of deliverance. Daughter of Himalayas, she symbolizes the triumph of good over bad. The day of astami is purely vegetarian, whereby for lunch we have khichuri, with papors and pickles, and at dinner after spending the whole evening Pandal hopping, there would be round golden fried luchis, puffed up like a balloon. However, if a lot of fat is observed during the process of making the dough, the bread instead of becoming puffy becomes flaky and is known as khasta luchi. Though luchis, can be eaten with anything, the two classical vegetarian dishes associated with this ceremonial occasion; a potato dish called alur dam, and a dal made with yellow splitpeas and tiny pieces of coconut. Alur dam to Bengali means a dish of potatoes, usually whole or quartered, cooked with a thick spicy sauce. It is usually eaten with luchis or wheat-flour chapatis, but not rice. And the dessert course being kheer (simply reduced milk) or payeesh (rice cooked in milk and cardamoms flavour). Navami, being the last day of Durga’s stay, is gastronomically opposite of Ashtami, meat eating is the order of the day, but without any onion or garlic. And on the evening of Bijoya Dashami, the images in the community pandals are loaded on to trucks and taken to the nearest river, the Hooghly in Calcutta, for the final site of bhashan – throwing them into water. It is then in the wake of departed Goddess, that the most beautiful aspect of Bijoya Dashami comes discarding all ill-feelings of hostility, anger and enimity. Within the family the younger people touch their elders’ feet (pranom) and receive their blessings, while contemporaries embrace each other with good wishes. As the evening deepens, relative's friends and neighbours drop in to convey their Bijoya greetings. They are offered sweets, which cannot be refused and even the diabetics put fragement into their mouth to

honour the custom. The most commonest sweet is the sandesh, because it is dry and easy to carry. But there is nothing to stop you from bringing an earthen pot of rosogollas swimming in syrup, or even like rajbhog or pantua. Next comes Lakshmi Puja (goddess of rice) and then the Kali Puja.

By the end of the month of Kartik (October), urban Bengalis resume there normal pattern of life in school, college and offices. But in rural Bengal this is a time of great expectation. For the following month, Agrahayan (November), is also the time to harvest the rice that gave the region its soubriquet, ‘Golden Bengal’ (Sonar Bangla). The name itself, Agrahayan, is compounded of two words – agra (best or foremost) and hayan (unhusked rice).

In the countryside, Agrahayan is full time of hard work outdoors. In good years, when the monsoon has been just right, the fields are full of the standing rice crops that needs to be harvested and brought home. Under the bearable autumn sun, the peasants cut the rice with their sickles and tie it in golden bunches to be transported by bullock carts. Slowly, as the days progress, the once golden fields become stretches of shebbles, the dead remnants of the plant being later gathered for animal feed and supplementary fuel. In the evenings, as the first chill of oncoming winter is felt, some of the rice straw is used for small fires in front of which people can sit and warm themselves. Once the rice has been harvested and stored in woven-straw, covered bins, the work of threshing, husking and milling begins. Once the rice has been harvested and stored in woven-straw covered bins, the work of threshing, husking and milling begins.

In the olden days, before mills or any kind of technology, it was the women who did the backbreaking job of husking the rice. The tradition Bengali instrument of taking the husk off the rice is called dhenki, a long wooden board mounted on a short pedestal, in the middle, much like a sea-saw. One end of the board has a short pestle-like attachment ground where the unhusked rice is kept. It requires two women to handle a dhenki. One stands near the end without the pestle and presses it down with her foot. As soon as she releases her foot, the board dips down to the other end, the pestle hitting the rice with force, thus separating the husk from the grain. As she press with her foot and lifts the board from the rice, then other woman turns the rice over with her hand, so that all the grains can be hit evenly. It is an infinitely time-consuming process, and is no longer viable. But, some food aficionados claim that rice husked by a dhenkis far superior in taste to rice processed in a mill. This may be based on the fact that the dhenki always leaves some of the inner husk on the grain, whether parboiled or atap, thus making it more nutritious.

Once the rice has been harvested, rural Bengal propitiates the gods for their bounty through the joyful festival of nabanno, which literally means ‘new rice’. An offering to god of milk, gur, pieces of sugar cane, bananas and above all the new rice.

Puja holidays are also the time for picnics. When, the weather is very pleasant, gentle cool breeze blowing and the sun shinning with the utmost modest, any outing besides running streams, in dak bungalows or in the mangrove forests, seems to be an ideal destination. And despite the presence of driving cars, the best part of this journey usually consisted of opening up your ‘tiffin carrier’ and consuming the luchis, alur dam, dry curried meat and the mistis brought from home. Added to it, the tranquil fullness, of nature in the autumn also imbues the water of Bengal and people can sometimes indulge themselves with amateur fishing, and spending contemplative afternoons with bait and live.

Bori making is another way of living exclusively feminine art, during the months of autumn. As with all art, the boris reflected the hand that made them. The consistency of the dal, the degree of spicing and the intensity of whipping the paste before making the pellets, all varied from woman to woman. Kalaidal (urad dal) for instance, is used to make variety called phulboris, which are feather light and melt in the mouth once fried in oil.

And with the chilly winter ahead, everybody quite unwillingly let the autumn pass by and wait for the advent of sheet – winter.

Sheet – Winter :-

Brief, invigorating, with vibrant colour standing out in a dry and rough landscape, winter in Bengal is like the perfect love affair. It is our season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, two short months of bliss. The flowers of winter are not like the demure white blossoms of the monsoon and the autumn. Crimson roses, yellow and bronze chrysanthemums, blazing marigolds and multicolored dahlias clamor for attention. In the country you can feast your eyes on fields of mustard awash in yellow blossom, on patches of maroony-red lalshak, on the subtle greens of cabbages on the earth and the climbing vine of the lau spreading over thatched roofs and bamboo frames. In the city markets the rich, purple aubergines are offset by snowy-white cauliflower's peeking from within their leaves, carrots, tomatoes, beet, cucumbers, scallions and bunches of delicate corriander leaves invite you to stop cooking and make only salads. And the infinite variety of leafy, green spinach, mustard, laushka, betoshak, muloshak, methishak – makes you wonder if the impoverished Bengali widow is to be pitied or envied for her vegetarian diet.

All this should have inspired an artistic frenzy of still lifes on canvas. But somehow the most important and joyful thing about winter to a Bengali is the opportunity and ability to eat far more abundantly than during any other season, to indulge in all the rich meats, prawns, eggs and fish dishes. The colonial years have left behind the festivities of Christmas and New Year which the Bengali has enthusiastically adopted and the early winter month of Poush sees the pithaparban, a folk festival designed specially for the making and eating of large quantities of sweet. And even if cannot afford too much of these, he still has a wonderful array of vegetables and fruits from which to choose.

The olden days menus, consisted of bitter shukto made with aubergines, shim (flat beans) margosa leaves as a first course; a combination dish of aubergines, our native pumpkin, jackfruit seeds and phul boris, all seasoned with the juice of ginger, mustard greens and betoshak fried in pungent mustard oil, two kinds of dal, ghonta made with moan, boris, flavoured and cumin and sweet chutney of sour karamcha.

But where are the cabbages, cauliflower's, potatoes, tomatoes, beets or green peas? Nowhere in sight, and the Bengalis managed very well without them. Many vegetables, which are now part of the daily diet, were imported into Bengal during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Dutch, French and Portuguese traders. Like the potatoes as most scholars concede, were the contribution of the Portuguese, while the cabbage was got from the Frenchmen, the tomatoes known as ‘English aubergine’ used in fish and vegetable recipes to create a sweet and sour taste, can definitely be attributed to the British presence. The concept of serving raw vegetables as salad was introduced by our colonial rulers. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the culinary genius of Bengal slowly developed the modern vegetarian classics by combining the old and the new. Cabbages, potatoes and peas became the base for a spicy winter ghanto which rivals the mochar ghanta has been a favourite since medieval times. Cauliflower's, combined with potatoes, were made into a rich and fragrant dalna that was a wonderful variation of the summer specialty, the potal and potato dalna. As for green peas, the Bengali spurned the plain boiled version served on the dinner tables of his British ruler and made delectable savories like matarshutir kachuri or chirar pulao or the filling for shingara (Samosas) with them, aside from adding them to other vegetable dishes.

But, the most amazing import of course is the potato. And, next to the Irish, Bengalis are probably the largest potato eaters in the world, and yet this is such a relative upstart in the hierarchy of our food. With rice, it is an inevitable daily ingredient in the diets of vegetarians and non-vegetarians, alike. And, in no other time does the Bengali do as much with the potatoes as in winter, when the small new potatoes are available in addition to the old ones. From the plain boiled potatoes, to bhaja, bharta to alur dam all are savoured by the Bengalis.

Perhaps, one of the major festivals of winter is the Saraswati puja – goddesses of books and the official harbinger of spring. During Saraswati Puja, eating of Gotasheddho is compulsory, whereby none of the vegetables are cut and one just boiled whole. The goddess is offered fruits like apple, shakalu, sugar-cane bits, bananas, dates and kul (a kind of plum) that would be offered to the goddess. The bananas offered to Saraswati are special type, very sweet, but full of large black seeds. The kul cannot be touched before being offered to the goddess. Since, it has very short season, Bengalis eagerly look forward to the sanction to eat this sweet and sour fruit. This variety of kul is called a narkel kul. A sour red species, the topa kul, can be made into lovely sweet pickles with gur or salted and dried in the sun.

Like all other goddess, Saraswati also leaves in the evening for the final ceremony of the immersion in the river.the lavish garlanding of marigold round her neck, signaling the blazing sunshine of the summer to come – summer too is waiting to pounce, behind the immediacy of spring.

BENGALI KITCHEN

Bonti :-

A curved raised blade attached to a long, flat cutting vegetables, fish and meat. The bonti used for fish and meat is kept separate from vegetable bonti and the non-veg ansh-bonti (ansh implies scales of fish).

Hari :-

A cooking pot with a rounded bottom, slightly narrowed at the neck with a wide rim to facilitate holding, while draining excess of rice water.

Dekchi :-

Referred as saucepan without a handle, usually of greater depth. Used for boiling, sautéing

Karai :-

A cooking pot shaped like a Chinese wok, but much deeper. Used for deep frying, stir-frying as well as for preparations and sauces and gravy. It’s usually made of iron or aluminium and usually has two-looped handles.

Tawa :-

It’s a griddle, used for making porothas.

Thala :-

A circular plate of authentically brass, but now a days of steel, on which food is served.

Khunti :-

Long handled implement of steel or iron with a flat thin belt-shaped piece, used as stirrers.

Hatha :-

A metal spoon with indention, used as stirrers and also for transferring food stuffs.

Sarashi :-

An equipment, used for holding vessels hot on range.

Chakni :-

A sieve.

Chamuch :-

A spoon.

Sheel nora :-

Grinding stone, slab of 16 inches * 10 inches and a small bolster-shaped stone roller 9 inches long. Both the slab and roller are chipped from time to time as they are worn smooth.

Hamal Dista :-

Motar and pestle, which could be used in place of sheelnora. Usually used for grinding spices to a fine powder or to a fine paste with the addition of water.

BENGALI FISHES :

In tranquil fullness of nature in the autumn also imbues the waters of Bengal and rural people can sometimes indulge themselves with amateur fishing, spending contemplative afternoons and bait and live. Fishes found in autumn : small fishes like punti, maurola, tangra and bele, the round-bellied pomfret, the pankal, baan and gule of the eel family, shingi and magur of the cat fish family, estuarine delectable like parshe, bhetki, bhangan and of course the specimen of King prawn, the galda chingri. Many of these fishes are cooked in strong, pungent sauces because they themselves have

strong flavours and very firm flesh. Green chillies are added for extra zest and the phoron is either kalo jeera or panchphoron. Barring macher jhol (literally fish stew) fish kalia – rich, dark, gravy spiced with freshly ground cumins, corianders,ginger, turmeric, red chillies and garam mashala!

Winter of course is also the time, when the great rivers are at their tamest, without having totally lost their character or potency. Fisherman, have an easy time hauling in their catch, whether it is a big fish like rui,katla or hilsa, but the most prized catch during winters are the shrimps and shell fishes, like the hilsa, the prawns has an elevated status and its price reflects it. The striped tiger prawn or bagda chingri is cooked with ground coconut, or with

winter vegetables or made into a paturi like the hilsa, while the big, flat galda chingri – king prawns (cray fish) are cherished for their wonderful juicy tar and added to a rich cauliflower and potato kalia, made into malaikari. The malaikari, which make every Bengali salivate with pleasure, is a red rich preparation where the sauce, enriched with thick coconut milk, ghee, spices. Another gustatory delight being the dab chingri, a preparation where the prawns are mixed with a pungent mustard paste, salt, mustard oil, and green chillies and stuffed inside a tender coconut, from which water has been drained off. The coconut, is then plastered and baked in a wood fire.

The monsoon is so associated with the ilish, called hilsa (British). The hilsa life-cycle is something like that of salmon. After starting life in the sea, the fish comes to the spawn in the estuarine waters, where the rivers meet the Bay of Bengal, and slowly moves upwards along the rivers to the northern regions of India, growing in size upto 2.5 kg. Many of the hilsa caught during monsoon are big with roe, which is a delicacy in its own right and considered a caviar of tropics. The roes are just simply fried, to obtain the delicate taste. But, compared to the Ganga specimen, this silvery-scaled fish variety of Padma is better in terms of softness and flavour.

But the major carps Rohu, Catla and Bhetki are the most popular and are available through out the year in abundance, due to the Bheri culture. "Bheris" are a kind of inland fishing done in close water, where fishes are reared and cultured throughout the year, in various parts of West Bengal, especially near the Ganga basin.

Fishes are not only substaintial source of protein, but are also easy to cook. Any fish, has predominantly for parts, - the head (which is either used whole or are cut into smaller pieces, to be used with vegetables), secondly the peti (stomach), which has comparatively lesser number of bones, but more of fat and third the gada (or the back) which lodges the treacherous bones and lastly the tail.

It is customary for the head of the family to go everyday morning to the fish market, and get varied kinds of fishes each day, and savour it as Manch Bhaja, Macher Jhol, Macher Kalia, Sorshe Macch, Macch Paturi or in someway else.

BENGALI BREADS :-

Though Bengalis, primarily loves to eat rice, yet there are a few typical Bengali Breads, which are quite famous in various parts of Bengal. Some of the prominent among these are,

Luchi :-

Eaten for mainly snacks,equivalent to the north Indian poories and taken with bhajas.

Khasta Luchi :-

The dough is much richer with fat and flaky. Hence, known as khasta kachuri.

Porotha :-

It is a kind of flaky bread, made out of whole wheat flour and is essentially triangular in shape.

Roti :-

Whole wheat flour bread, toasted on griddle.

Radhabollobbi :-

A stuffed poori made out if whole wheat flour.

Dhakai porotha :-

Flaky, layered bread from Dhaka in Bangladesh.

Matter kachuri :-

Flaky bread, stuffed with matter paste and deep-fried.

BENGALI SWEETS :-

The Bengalis call their desserts course as mishti. It was many years ago that every household made its own sweet dishes. The principles of economy and the skilled required for the popular preparations led to families specializing in confectionery – making, where expertise was handed down from father to son.

The community, known as Moiras, has developed sweet-making into a fine art and specialities like rosogulla and sandesh are made.

The winter is the season for gur or jaggery. The arrival of gur in the market is the signal for the professional sweet-makers to start preparing, their most popular products, sandesh flavoured with gur. The nalen gurer sandesh has a browny pink tinge and is very dear to the Bengalis. At the beginning gur is sold in its liquid form, jhola gur, which is poured over hot luchis and chapaties, much like the American maple syrup on pancake,

But, to one’s belief, Bengali sweets are not Sandesh, Rosogulla or Misti Doi. There are even lots more varieties to Bengali Desserts, which might not be available, commercially in the market, nor in the sweet shops, but typically home made.

At the first month of winter, Poush, rolls on, the occasional north wind becomes a little too nippy in the mornings, and the dust flies around to settle in a poll over available surfaces. This month of Poush is the specific month for eating two things – one being mulo, and the other thing being of rice-wheat-coconut based sweets, described collectively as pitha.

Of the thirteen festivals in twelve months that have become a Bengali proverb, the last day of Poush is probably the only one that is purely based on the pleasure of eating. In the old days, when rural and feudal life meant, extended families and communal festivities, there was a great scope of making pithas. One of the simplest rasbara, is made from pasted kalaidal, whipped till frothy, then fried in round balls and finally soaked in syrup. Another very simple pitha, the chitoi pitha, is made from rice flour mixed with water and left in a covered, heated, earthern ware saucer.

Then there is rutipitha or chaler ruti(literally meaning rice bread) – where rice is soaked, grinded and boiling water is added to make a sticky dough. Finally, it is shaped into ruti and served piping hot with any desserts.

The other is pulipitha, where a rich dough of wheat flour is stuffed with grated coconut, jaggery and creams, folded into a triangle and simmered in reduced milk flavoured with cardamoms.

The other most popular mishti of festivities being the

Naru :

Which is simply grated coconut in melted jaggery and made into round .

The sweet shops of Bengal known as "Mistannan Bhandar" (Sweet House) sells some of the ever-popular sweets.

Darbesh :-

Chickpea pellets fried and cooked in sugar syrup. Served with raisins, nuts and pistachio.

Sandesh :-

It’s a generic term for a group of sweets, which has infinite varieties, like, aam sadness (mango), kamlanebur sandesh (orange), notan gurer sandesh, chocolate sandesh, kaurapaker sandesh.

It is made by frying chenna and sugar in a karai over until the sugar dissolves.

Rosogulla :-

The ever-famous cheese balls in sugar syrup, is ever popular and is the most common in item of any sweet shop. But, the houses like K.C.Das which specializes in rosogulla, now has rosogulla available in tins of 1 kg. 2kg and 5 kg and has a major chunk exported.

Malpoa :-

Another popular sweet made with a batter of dahi and flour, deep-fried and served as rabri.

METHODS OF COOKING.

Unlike other cuisine the Bengalis also have some of there typical ways of cooking, which not only depends on the type of ingredients available, but also on the seasonal influence. As, during summers, when there is lot of humidity and the temperature scaling, the Bengalis prefer light stew (jhol) kind of preparations. Whereas, in monsoon or during the rainy season lot of bhajas (fried items) and khichuri (rice and lentil porridge) are the most popular. While, in winter, kalia (thick gravy) sort of preparation enjoys popularity.

Hence, we have cooking methods like,

Bhapa :-

Literally, means streamed, which is most common for fishes like hilsa, Bagda (Tiger prawns), where fishes are smeared with a rich coconut and mustard gray and then steamed. Bhapa bagda and Bhapa ilish (steamed and smoked Hilsa) are some of the specialities.The later is the signature dish of the Oberoi Grand - Calcutta, and also one of the most popular.

Kassa :-

This is a way of cooking for specially red meats like lamb or mutton is bhunooed in a very thick spicy masala of onion, ginger, garlic, chilli powder, turmeric powder and cumin powder and made into a gravy sort.

Jhol :-

It is a kind of preparation, where the cooked fish or meat is served accompanied with stew kind of preparation. It is supposed to be very nutritive, eaten with morsels of rice especially during the summers.

Phoron :

It is predominantly the kind of tempering, which is used in the preparation of lentils, with various lentils having their own tempering.

Bhaja :-

Especially snack it ever or the appetizer course of Bengali luncheon menu, includes vegetables like brinjal, potal (parwal), alu (potato) which are dipped in a latter of besan and deep-fried.

Ambal :-

A sour dish made either with several vegetables or with fish, the sourness being produced by the addition of tamarind pulp. Ambals are meant to be eaten at the end of a meal, before dessert and are more common in summers.

Bhaja :-

Anything fried by itself or in batter.

Bharta :-

Any vegetables, such as potatoes, beans, aubergines, pumpkins or even dal, first boiled whole, then mashed and seasoned with mustard oil and spices.

Bhuna :-

A Muslim term, meaning fried for a long time with ground and whole spices over high heat. Usually applied to meat.

Charchari :-

Usually a vegetable dish of one or more varieties of vegetables cut into strips, seasoned with ground spices like mustard/poppy seeds and flavored with phoron.

Chhenchkki :-

Tiny pieces of one or many vegetables or sometimes even the peel (potato, pumpkin etc.) – usually flavoured with panch phoran or whole mustard seeds or kalo jeera, chopped onions and garlic can also be used.

Dalna :-

Mixed vegetables, with a thick gravy seasoned with ground spices and ghee.

Ghanto :-

Different vegetables (cabbage, pear, potatoes, chickpeas), are chopped or grated fine and cooked with both a phoron and a complex ground spices. Boris are added to ghanto.

Jhal :-

A hot dish especially for the meats. First, lightly fried and then cooked in a light sauce, of ground chilli, ground mustard and panchphoran.

Jhol :-

A lightly fish stew, seasoned with ground spices like ginger, cumin, coriander, chilli and turmeric. Extremely thin, yet flavorful, meant to be eaten with rice.

Kalia :-

A very rich preparation of fish or meat or vegetables, using a lot of oil and ghee with a sauce of onion paste, garlic-ginger paste, tomato puree and garam mashala.

Korma :-

A Muslim term meaning meat or chicken cooked in a mild yogurt based sauce and ghee.

Pora :-

Literally burnt. Where vegetables are burnt over direct fire, mixed with oil and spices. Especially begun-pora during winters are pretty popular.

Meals of the Day

BREAKFAST :-

Normally the day of an average Bengali household starts, with the head of the family getting up early in the morning and before going to the market has a sip of tea with moori (puffed rice). And once he comes, the breakfast is ready. On weekdays, its roti and alu potaler tarkari, porotha with ghat tarkari,or even for a shortcut breakfast like puffed rice and milk or bread with ghugni (thick pea curry). On weekends, breakfast are more leisurely taken and are usually heavy which in addition to the above has luchi (puri) with alur dam and some sweets like hot jelabis to finish off. As such there is neither any course nor much variety to a normal breakfast menu.

Loochi / Paratha / Roti

Ghat tarkari / Alu and potaler tarkari

Milk / tea

LUNCH :

The luncheon menu in an average Bengali household, is the meal of the day, and especially in holidays, utmost attention is attached to it. Lots of efforts, right from going to the market early morning to buy perishables, preparing, to cooking, to dishing and upto clearance , is all done with extreme passion.

The luncheon menu varies drastically and changes with seasons. Like for example, during summer month it starts with a cooler water, then appetizers like neem patha (bhaja), sukto (bitter stew) which has supposed to have a cooling effect. Followed by rice, lentil, one dry vegetable and are gravy vegetable, meat/fish and chutney. Special occasions call for mishti; like misti doi and rasogulla as the dessert course. Usually rice is places as a heap of mound in the center of the plate and all the main courses dishes are placed in small bowls, right next to the plate, all at a time.

Usually, the guests have a few morsels of rice with each of the courses.

Sukto

Boiled rice

Lau-chingri

Masoor dal

Aloo pasta

Macher jhol

Aam chutney

---------------------

Neem and Begun bhaja

Boiled rice

Ghat tarkari

Mochar ghanta

Sorshe ilish

Tomato chutney

----------------------

During the monsoon, especially during the rainy seasons, nothing seems to be more appetizing than khichuri and begun bhaja and ghat tarkari (mainly pumpkin) and papad and pickle.

While during winters, heavy foods stuffs like Macher kalia, kasa Mangsho, pulao, Ghee Bhaat are much more used. Seasonal vegetables in winter like beet root, carrot, cabbage are also popular.

Snack menu :-

Though in Bengal we don’t have any well-defined snack items, yet items like vegetable cutlet ( mashed potato cake tempered with mustard,dipped in besan batter and deep -fried), egg roll, chicken roll, puckha (puffed mini stuffed with mashed potato and dipped in tamarind water), jhal moori are all time favourites. Some special savouries like, nimkis (maida dough rice with black onion seeds shaped into triangles and deep fried), shingara (samosa), chanachur goes very well with evening tea.

Dinner menu :-

The dinner menu of an average Bengali household is not a very elaborate affair. Most of the items of the lunch are left-overs and are rechauffed and served. One or two minor additions like begun bhaja, aloo bhaja might come in.But one of the major change is breads, like roti, poori coming in place of rice. But most of the households have an option for rice and bread, which depends upon the family.

Special menus :-

Cosmopolitan Calcutta rejoices, mourns and celebrates the festivals of it’s communities with a joie de vivre. During the four days puja fiesta the city does not go to be and eating is a feast.

The first two days of the puja, Saptami and Ashtami, is vegetarian. Lunch in these days consists of khichuri, with ghat tarkari, fried pappad with pickle – a sort of Bhog. While at dinner after a whole afternoon and evening of trampling around the city, visiting goddess in there pandals, there would be round golden luchis, puffed up like balloons. The evocation of ashtami with the drums beating and the bell ringing for the evening rituals of arati performed before the goddess by the priest, has a special association in many Bengali with luchis – even with plain sugar or it can also be eaten with alur dam, flavoured with a pinch of asafoetida or cholar dal. The luchis are usually deep fried and has a diameter of 3" – 5". And the desserts from the dinner include kheer or payesh.

Navami and Bijoya the last two days of the puja are gastronomically opposite to each other, where meat eating is the order of the day. Bangals has a custom of getting whole fish from the market and them cutting it into individual sewing portions.

On the evening of Bijoya, the images of the communities are ready for Bhasan (immersion) in the rivers. Sweet eating is a must, where everyone shed their ill feelings and embraces each other with open arms. Rosogulla, pantua, misti-doi, sandesh mostly run of stock.

SPECIAL MENUS

Wedding :-

Social occasions are of paramount importance to the businessmen of the city. Previous all festival and special occasions were catered by ‘Thakur’ – group of barwachis, but new with modernization coming in these occasion are handed-over to professional caterers. The wedding menu in Bengali household are almost the same selection of dishes.

Fish cutlet / Vegetable cutlet (crumbed and deep fried)

Radhaballavi

Alur dam / Cholar dal narkel diya

Fried rice (steamed rice with vegetables and nuts in ghee)

Macher Kalia

Kassa Mangsho

Chutney

Mishti doi / Rosagulla

Paan

.RECEPIES

Cereals :-

Dal :-

Maach :-

Mangsho :-

Torkari :-

Bhaja / pora :-

Misti :-

Snacks:

FIELD STUDY :

A field study was conducted at random among the local people in Calcutta, to find out the popularity of a cuisine, on an outing.

SAMPLE : 40 people

Bengali North-Indian South-Indian Chinese Others

6 people 12people 3 people 16 people 3 people

(5%) (30%) (7.5%) (40%) (7.5%)

ANALYSIS : Most of the people said that they wanted to dine out for a change of taste and hence Bengali food was not there first choice. North-Indian food was pretty popular as most of the Bengalis found it as a good alternative for a change in taste from there regular stuff and Marawaris found there typical home made food.

The South-Indian food was mostly preferred as a snacks rather than a main meal. Idlli, dosa and vada are a very popular evening snack item.

But, above all Chinese food was most preferred as it was not only a change in taste but also was very quick to be served and eaten. Some said they simply liked it. While people did'nt want to try out other cuisine as they were not knowledgeable about it.

ISSUES :-

Non-popularity of authentic Bengali restaurants :-

Not a very well accepted and well publicised cuisine.

Very much adapted to suit the taste of the people from a certain region.

Exposure to wider range of foods and cuisine.

Traditionally, dinning out for the Bengalis, means something new, something different from normal stuff like :- Italian, Chinese, South Indian or North Indian.

Refrigerators not popular :

Going to the market and getting fresh ingredients, is kind of ritual, early morning for the head of the family.

Refrigerated food is not very well accepted.

Don’t want to get 3-4 days ingredients and block money.

Bengali Sweets :-

Widely accepted.

Lot of variety.

Rosogulla in vacuum packed tins now widely exported.

An industry of thirteen crores, sweet-making is well set to gain industrial status in West Bengal to make it more organised.

GLOSSARY OF INDIAN WORDS

English Bengali Hindi Suggested

Alternatives

Spices and Condiments

Aniseed Mauri Saunf

Asafoetida Hing Hing

Bay leaves Tej Pata Tej Patta

Cardamom (green) Choto Elachi Hara Elaychi

Cardamom (black) Boro Elachi Bara Elaychi

Carom Seeds Jowan Ajwain

Chilli (red) Sookno Lanka Mirchi

Cinnamon Dalchini Dalchini

Cloves Labango Laung

Coriander Dhone Dhaniya

Cumin (white) Shada Jeera Jeera

Onion Seeds Kalo Jeera Kalonji

Fenugreek Methi Methi

Garlic Roshun Lhsun

Ginger Ada Adrak

Kashmiri Chilli Kashmiri Lanka Rogni Mirch

Mace Jayetri Javitri

Mint Pudina Podina

Mustard (black/white) Sorse Sarson, Rai

Nutmeg Joiphol Jaiphal

Parsley Parsley Pata Ajmode ke patta

Peppercorns Gol Mirich Kali Mirich (Sabat)

Pepper Powder Golmirch Guro Kali Mirich

Poppy Seed Posto Khus Khus

Saffron Jaffran Zaffran or Kesar

Rose water Golaper Jal Gulab Jal

Sesame Til Til

Tamarind Tetul Imli

Turmeric Holud Haldi

Vinegar Sirka Sirka

English Bengali Hindi

Mango Ginger Amada Aamhaldi

Gram masala Gorom mashla.

Panch phoron

(5 whole spices - fenugrek,fennel,cumin,kalonji & radhuni )

Radhuni Radhuni

FRUITS, VEGETABLES AND NUTS

Aubergines, eggplant

Or Brinjal Begun Baingun

Almonds Badam Badam

Banana (ripe) Kola Kela

Banana (green) Kanch Kola Kacchha Kela

Banana flower Mocha Kela ka phul

Banana pith Thora Gahar

Bitter gourd Korola, Uchhe Karela

Bottle gourd or

Vegetable marrow Lau Lauki,dudhi

English Bengali Hindi

Broad been family Sheem Sem/papri Mange-tout

Cabbage Bandhakopi Band Gobi

Capsicum or Capsicum Bara or

Green peppers Shimla Mirch

Carrots Gajor Gajar

Cauliflower Phulkopi Phul Gobi

Chilli (green) Kancha Lanka Sabz or hari mirch

Climbing spinach Pui sag Poy Sag

Coconut Narkol Nariyal

Colacassia tuber Kochu Arvi

Coriander leaves Dhone pata Hara Dhanya

Drum sticks Sajne Danta Shinjan

Horse Radish Mulo Muli

Jackfruit (green) Echor Kachha Kathal

Jackfruit (ripe) Kanthal Kathal

Knol Khol Olkopi Ganth Gobi

Lime or Lemon Pati Lebu Nimbu

English Bengali Hindi

Mango (green or raw) Kacha Aam Kacha Aam

Mango (ripe) Aam Aam

New potatoes Natun Alu Naya Alu

Okra or ladies Dharosh Bhindi

Finger

Onions Piyaj Piaz

Papaya Pepe Papita

Peas Matarshurti Matar ki Phaliyan/ matar.

Pistachio nut Pesta Pista

Plum, dried Alubokhara Alubukhara

Plum (Indian) Topa Kool Ber

Parwal Potal Parwal

Parwal leaves Palta Pata Parwal Patti

Potato Alu Alu

Pumpkin (red) Lal kumro Kaddu

Pumpkin (white) Chal Kumro Kumhra/petha Marrow

Raisins Kishmish Kishmish

Spinach Palong Sag Palak

English Bengali Hindi

Spring onions Gach Piaj Hara Piaz

Sponge/rigid gourd Jhinge Tori,Turai Courgettes/ zucchini

Sweet potatoes Misti Alu Shakarkand

Tomato Tomato Tamatar

Vegetables Tarkari, Sobji Tarkari Sabji

Vegetable peel Khosha Chhilka

Types of edible greens Lal sag/Note sag Denga Shag Spinach

(lal sag is red in colour) Patsan Shag

CEREALS AND LENTILS :-

Rice uncooked Chal Chawal

Rice cooked Bhat Chawal, Bhat

Flaked rice Chira Chura

Popped Rice Khoi Khoi

Puffed Rice Muri Murmura/mumra

Flour Moida Maida

Flour wholemeal Atta Atta

English Bengali Hindi

Rice flour Sabeda Chawal ka atta

Semolina Suji Suji/Rawa

Chich-pea flour/ Beshon Besan

Bengal Gram flour

PULSES :-

Lentils Masur dal Masur dal

Split black gram Kalai dal Urhad dal

Split Bengal Gram Cholar dal Channa dal

Split peas Mator dal Mar dal

Split green gram Moog dal Mung dal

A variety of pulse Arhor dal Toor dal/Arhar dal

Sun-dried small Bori Bari

Pulse cakes

MISCELLANEOUS :-

Butter Makhon Makkhan

Chicken Murgi Murgh

Yogurt flavoured Doi Dahi

English Bengali Hindi

Egg Dim Anda

Fish Maach Machli (Machhali)

Fresh cottage cheese Chhana Panir

Meat Mangsho Gosht

Mince Keema Kheema

Mustard oil Sorse Tel Sarsan ka Tel

Pork Suyorer Mangsho Suwar ka Gosth

Sugar Chini Shakar, Chini

TERMS OF VARIOUS FISH AND SEA FOOD

Bekti Betki Betki

Cat fish (fresh water) Magur, Shinghi Singhara

Climbing perch Koi

Crab Kakkra Kakkra

Cray fish (fresh water) Galda chingri Bura jhinga Small lobster

Hilsa Elish Palla, Bhing Indian Salmon Salmon Rawas Pacific Salmon

Prawns/Shrimps Chingri Jhinga

Carp Rui, Mrigel, Katla Rohu Halibut

Turtle Kethe Kachhua

Mullet Parshe Boi

GLOSSARY OF BENGALI TERMS.

AKHNI : A kind of perfume water made by boiling sereval spices in a bundle until the original volume of water is reduced to a third. This perfume water is used to cook the rice for a pulao.

ALU : Potato.

ALUR CHOP : A kind of fried potato cake made by dipping balls of spiced mashed potatoes in batter and deep-frying in oil.

ANNAPRASAN : A ceremony that formally marks a childs transition in diet from milk to solid foods, including rice, anna.

ATTA : A kind of fruit with a green and black knobby surface and creamy white flesh inside with large black seeds. Available only during the autumn. Atar payesh is the flesh of this fruit cooked in milk as a dessert.

ATAP : Literally, untouched by heat. The term denotes husked rice, which has not been parboiled.

BALAM : A variety of long-grained rice from the Bangladesh district of Barishal, much prized for its taste.

BANGAL : A person from East-Bengal, now in Bangladesh.

BARA/BORA : Round balls of fish or vegetables, usually deep-fried.

BARSHA : The rainy season, the monsoon.

BASANTA : Spring.

BHABRA : A savoury snack made with spiced ground fermented chickpeas flour in oil. These used to be fairly common in parts of rural West-Bengal.

CHAL : Uncooked husked rice.

CHARAK : A summer festival .

BHAKTI : Literally, devotion. The medieval Bhakti movement in Bengal was started by Sri Chaitanaya who declared that god could be reached only the deepest and purest love, not through knowledge or rituals.

BHASAN : Literally, setting afloat in water. All images of gods and goddesses are put into the nearest river after the end of their particular festival.

BHAT : Plain boiled rice.

BHOG : An offering of food given to the gods.

BICHAR-ACHAR : A complex set of rules governing the purity of the kitchen and the home. Most of the rules centre around the pot of cooked rice and vegetarian and non-vegetarian food.

BIRAHA : Seperation. One of the great themes of the medieval poetry is the painful seperation between Radha and Krishna after the latter leaves his native birndaban and assumes the kingship of Mathura.

BONTI : A curved, raised blade attached to a long, flat piece of wood or a metal frame, and used for cutting vegetables, fish and meat. Knives are a relatively recent import in the Bengali kitchen. The bonti used for fish and meat is kept separate from the vegetable bonti and is called an ansh-bonti. The word ansh literally means the scales of fish.

CHAITANYA : Also called Shri Chaitanaya, the founder of the bhakti movement in medieval Bengal. His followers were from the Vaishnav sect.

CHAL : Uncooked husked rice.

CHARAK : A summer festival in the honour of lord Shiva.

CHHANA : The solid part of milk curdled by the addition of acid. Chhana is used to make a host of Bengali sweets.

CHHOLAR DAL : Yellow spilt peas.

CHINGRI : A generic term denoting all kinds of shrimps and prawns. Striped tiger prawns are called bagada chingri, while the top-heavy king sized prawns are called galda chingri. Very small shirmps are called kuncho chingri.

CHIRA : Flattened rice.

CHITOL : A large fish, with a very soft oily stomach or frontal portion, prized especially by the people of East- Bengal, and a very bony back portion.

CHOURUIBHATI : Literally, rice for the sparrows. The term means a picnic meal cooked for outdoors.

DAB : The green coconut.

DAGA : The back portion of the fish, longitudinally seperated from the frontal portion, peti. This portion is usually more bony.

DAL : A generic term denoting any kind of lentils.

DALAN : A space in the house.

DANTA : Any kind of succlent stalk that is eaten without or without its leaves as a vegetable.

DHAN : Unhusked paddy rice.

DHENKI : Instrument for manual rice threshing, now almost obsolete.

DHENKISHAK : A fern like leafy green, much prized as a vegetable.

DHONKA : Dhonkas are made out of ground, pressed dal to from sqares which are then cooked in a rich sauce served in place of meat.

DOI : Yogurt.

DOLJATRA : The great festivals of Hindus, where people each other with coloured powders, commemorating the game of colours played by Krishna and Radha and her friends.

DURGAPUJA : The most important Hindu festival in Bengal, the three day workship of Durga, wife of lord Shiva, goddess of deliverance.

ENTHHO : Literally, contaminated by mouth or touch. Awhole complex set of rules governs the subject of enthho and the orthodox Hindu kitchen is run along those strictures. Associated with bichar-achar. Enthho para means to clean or wipe the place where the food is eaten.

GAROM MASHLA : Literally, hot spice. Usually it means the combination of cinnamom, cardamom and cloves, with black peppercorns .

GAYE HALUD : Literally, turmeric on the body, the word halud meaning both the spice and the colour yellow. This is an important ceremony preceding a Hindu wedding paste of oil and ground turmeric is smeared on the foreheads of both bride and groom as a symbol of auspiciousness. The ceremonial

Gift of a whole fish send by the West-Bengali groom to his bride is also smeared with the same paste. Fresh turmeric is also considered an aid to beauty and traditionally Bengali girls used to anoint their whole bodies with turmeric paste before their bath so that the skin retain a golden glow.

GHEE : Clarified butter.

GHOTI : A person from West-Bengal.

GOBINDABHOG : A similar kind of atap chal.

GOTASHEDHDHO : Literally, boiled whole. Specifically, this term means several winter vegetables boiled whole and seasoned with salt, oil and green chillies which are eaten by the Bengali Hindus on the day after the winter festival of Saraswati Puja.

GRISHMA : Summer.

GUR : Indigenous sugar. Aakher gur means unrefined cane sugar. Khejur gur means the sugar obtained from processing the sap from the trunks of Khejur or date-palm tree during winter.

HABISHANNO : Rice and vegetable boiled in an earthen pot , prescribed for mourners after the death of a family member.

HALUA : A sweet dish made by cooking cream of wheat, eggs, flour and other things in ghee and sugar. Like, the Middle Eastern halva.

HANDI : A cooking pot with a rounded bottom, slightly narrowed at the neck with a wide rim to facilitate holding. Rice is traditionally cooked in handi.

HARAM : Among Muslims, a term denoting something absolutely forbidden.

HEMENTA : Late autumn, usually when the main rice crop is harvested.

ID-UL-FITR : The biggest Muslim festival, it comes after the month long fasting of ramzan

ID-UZ-ZOHA : The second biggest Muslim festival, also called Bakr-Id in Bangladesh. This commemorates the prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to allah. The son was changed to lamb, bakri which was sacrificed. Animals are still sacrificed on this occasion and their meat is called korbani, sacrifical meat.

IFTAAR : The breaking of the daily fast during the month of Ramzan among the Muslims. This is usually a lightly evening meal of cool drinks and snacks, preceding dinner.

ILISH : The Bengali name for Hilsa.

ILISH GURI : A very fine misty rain during the monsoon, the season for Hilsa.

JALKHABAR : Usually a light afternoon snack, the equivalent of the English tea.

JAMAISHATHI : The sixth day after the new moon during the second calendar month, Jaishtha. This is a day of Jamai, when the son-in-law is ceremonial welcomed by his parents-in-law and fed an elaborate meal and given gifts.

JARDA : Perfumed tobacco taken from betel leaves . In Bangladesh the term also means a kind of dessert made with rice, cooked in ghee and syrup, often with shredded fruits like pineapple and orange.

JHOLAGUR : This is liquid gur, made by boiling the sap from the date palm tree to a thick liquid consistency like that of maple syrup.

KACHCHI BIRYANI : A Muslim preparation from uncooked rice where meat and rice are cooked together a over a low flame.

KACHU : Any of several kinds of taro.

KACHUSHAK : The stems and not the leaves of taro eaten as vegetables.

KACHURI : A stuffed fried bread.

KAGJI : A variety of lemon used with dal or making lemonade.

KALAI DAL : This is a kind of pulse very popular specially in the summers. Supposed to keep the body cool.

KALBAISAKHI : This is a short, violent northwestern storm, usually happening in the early part of summer.

KALIPUJA : The worship of goddess Kali during the autumn new moon.

KALOJAM : A small berry, black on the outside and purple on the inside.

The word also applies to a kind of sweet known as ' pantua ' fried very dark on the outside.

KALOJEERA : Meaning black cumin. A small black seed with the delicate flavour used in cooking of fish and vegetables.

KAMALA : Orange.

KAMINI ATAP : A small grained variety of atap rice.

KANCHA : Raw or uncooked. Kancha moong dal means unroasted moong dal.

KARAI : A cooking pot like the Chinese wok much deeper used for stir frying as well as for gravies. Made out of iron or aluminium and usually has two loop shaped handles.

KARAMCHA : A pinkish white very sour berry available during the monsoon. Used in making sour fish dishes, chutneys or pickles.

KAROLA : The larger variety of bitter gourd.

KASUNDI : A sour mustard pickle, made in the summers eaten with rice or shak.

KATLA : One of the several kinds of fresh water carp.

KEORA WATER : Artificially perfumed water used in Muslim meat and rice dishes.

KHASHI : Castrated goat.

KHEER : Reduced milk.

KICHURI : Rice and dal cooked together with a variety of spices usually associated with rainy seasons.

KHOI : Popped rice.

KHUNTI : Kind of spatula usually brass or iron with a thin long handle.

KIRTAN : Religious songs, mostly about the love between Radha and Krishna.

KOI : Kind of fish called as climbing perch available in rainy seasons.

KOJAGORI : Goddess Lakshmi is worshipped, the term literally means "who is awake" and devotees are not supposed to sleep.

KORBANI : Sacrifical meat.

KRISHNA : Incarnation of Vishnu, the Vaishnav sect of Bengal are the devotees of Krishna.

KUL : Plum like fruit available in the winters. The sweet variety is called narkel kul and is used as an offering to goddess Saraswati while the sour variety topa kul are used for making pickles and chutneys.

KUMOR : The potter.

KUMRO : Pumpkin. Chal kumro, literally pumpkin on the roof is a native Bengali gourd. The pumpkin was a late import and was originally called biliti kumro.

LAKSHMI PUJA : The workship of goddess lakshmi, godesses of wealth and prosperity on the autumn of full moon.

LANCHA : A kind of sweet like a pantua. But shaped like a bloster.

LANGRA : A variety of mango.

LAU : It's a favourite bengali gourd, pale green on the outside and white on the inside.

LUCHI : A circular fried bread, puffy.

MAAN KACHU : A kind of very large taro, and is considered to be a delicacy. 'maan' means repute.

]MAACH : Fish.

MACHER JHOL : Fish stew.

MAGUR : A kind of fish of the catfish variety.

MALAIKARAI : A preparation of prawns of prawns made with coconut milk.

MALPUA : A home made sweet made of semolina and dipped in sugar syrup

MALSHA : an earthen pot in which rice, dal or vegetables are cooked, especially for religious purpose.

MASOOR DAL : The lentil.

MATTAR DAL : Dal made from green peas.

MATTARSHUTI : Green peas. Mattarshutir kachuri has ground green peas as the filling inside the bread.

MELA : Fair.

MIRGEL : Small variety of carp.

MISIHTI : Sweet (adj.) or sweets as a collective noun.

MISIHTI DOI : Sweet yogurt.

MOA : Round balls of puffed rice or popped rice sweetened with date palm sugar and flavored with kheer or cardamom seeds.

MOCHA : Banana blossom.

MOIRA : Professional sweet maker.

MOONG DAL : A small yellow pulse cooked plain in a metal pan after being roasted.

MUITHYA : A term used by the people of East Bengal to denote fish balls made by shaping them as fist or muthi.

MULO : The native radish available during the winters

MURI : Puffed rice.

MUROR DAL : A preparation combining roasted moong dal with a muro or fish head and spices.

NABANNO : Literally, new rice. A rural festival, especially, especially among the Hindus, to celebrate the harvesting of the main rice crop during the winters.

NALENGUR : The new gur.

NECHI : Small balls of dough which are patted between the palms before being rolled out.

NEEM : The margosa tree, whose small, bitter leaves are considered beneficial to they health during the spring and the summer. The leaves are fried crisp and combined with tiny pieces of aubergine to make neembegun, a first item served with rice.

NORA : The stone pestle rubbed horizontally against a flat stone to grind spices.

PAAN : Betel leaves. These are spiced with betel nuts, cardamoms, fennel seeds, lime solution and sometimes tobacco, and chewed after a meal as a chaser. Real addicts will have paan with tobacco many times a day, like smokers.

PANCHPHORAN : Literally, five flavors. Usually a combination of five whole spices, cumin, kalojeera, radhuni(kind of mustard), fenugrek, fennel.

PANDAL : An area covered with an awning of bamboo shoots in which the image of a god or goddesses are kept for community workship. Pandals are also made for weddings and other festivals, mostly to feed people.

PANTABHAT : Leftover fermented rice, eaten mostly by the poor people out of necessity, but also considered to be cooling and benefical in the summers.

PAPOR : The Bengali word for papadum, thin sheets of ground dal, spiced dried in the sun and fried just before serving.

PAROTA : The Bengali word for paratha. Fried bread, circular or triangular in shape, often with two or three layers. The famous Dhakai porota is flaky and has twenty to thirty layers.

PATALI GUR : The solidified sap of the date-palm tree, made by repeated boiling.

PATISHAPTA : A home made sweet, like crepes, usually stuffed with grounded coconut and jaggery.

PATOL : A small, green, gourd shaped vegetable mostly available mostly during the summers and the monsoons.

PATURI : Anything cooked wrapped in a leaf (pata) and left over a low flame in the embers of coal.

PAYESH : Anything, usually rice, cooked in milk.

PETI : The front or the stomach portion of fish.

PHAL AHAAR : Meaning a meal of fruit combined with puffed rice, milk or yogurt.

PHAN : The gruel drained out rice water.

PHORON : A flavouring agent. All dals are flavoured with phoron fried in ghee or oil.

PHULBORI : A particularly light bori, made with kalaidal.

PINDA : This literally means a lump. Usually this means an offering of cooked rice and fish, made into light balls and set to appease the ancestors and the dead persons during a Hindu funeral.

PITHA : Sweet or savoury items made from rice flour or cream of wheat, usually during the winters when the newly harvested atap rice is grounded to make the flour.

PITHA PARBAN : The winter festival of making pitha's.

POLAO : The Bengali word for pulao.

POSTO : Poppy seeds.

PUISHAK : A succulent, leafy, astringent vegetable available during the monsoons. Hindu widows are forbidden to eat this vegetable.

PUJA : Act of worship. In Bengal however the word by itself also denotes Durga puja.

PULI PITHA : A kind of stuffed pitha in a sweetened milky syrup.

PRONAM : A respectful gesture of touching the feet of elders.

RADHA : The milkmaid in brindavan who was Krishna's beloved though she was not his wife. To Vaishnav's in Bengal radha is the ultimate symbol of selfless love.

RAITA : Among the Bengali muslims, a salad of yogurt and cucumber.

RAJBHOG : A large spherical sweet made with chhana floating in syrup similar to rasgulla.

RAS : Literally juice specifically means the first tapping of syrup from the trunk of the date palm tree.

ROSOGULLAS : The most famous Bengali sweets, which are made of chhana and boiled in plain syrup.

ROSOMALAI : A kind of sweet with rosogullas floating in sweetened evaporated milk.

RATHJATRA : A chariot festival, the major event during the monsoons

RUI : The most famous variety of fresh water carp.

SANDESH: Like the rosogulla, a famous Bengali sweet made with chhana. But it is sweetened with sugar or gur in the cooking instead of being boiled in syrup.

SANKARANTI : The last day of every month, which coincides with a holy dip in the gang sager.

SARASWATI PUJA : The goddess of learning worshipped during the springs.

SHAB-E-BARAT : Literally the night of destiny.

SHADH : Literally a wish or desire. It is also the term used for a special elaborate meal served to a pregnant woman towards the end of her pregnancy

in the belief that if all her cravings are satisfied, she will bear a healthy child.

SHAK : Any kind of leafy green, eaten as a vegetable.

SHAKTO : A Hindu sect, followers of shakti, and the mother goddess.

SHALPA : The water lily, whose stems are eaten as vegetables.

SHARAT : Early autumn.

SHASHTHI : The sixth day of the moon.

SHEET : Winter.

SHEETAL : Cool.

SHIDDHA : Boiled. Parboiled rice is called siddha chal.

SHIL : The flattened, pitted stone on which the spices are grounded with nora.

SHIM : A kind of buttery textured flat, broad bean available in the winters.

SHINGARA : Triangular flour shells stuffed with vegetables or meat and deep fried in oil. A favourite with afternoon snacks.

SHOJNE : Drumsticks. Much prized as a delicacy and used in fish stews or mixed vegetables dishes.

SHOL : A kind of fish, mostly available in the winters and not eaten unless alive.

SHORSHE : Mustard. Hilsa cooked in a mustard sauce is called sorshe ilish.

SHRADHA : The funeral ceremony of the Hindus.

SUKTO : A bitter vegetable dish, served as a first course with rice, especially during the summer. Sukto is never served at dinner, only at lunch.

SINDUR : A vermilion powder worn by the Hindu married women on their partings. Also an auspicious element, used to decorate the foreheads of goddesses.

SUPURI : Betel nuts. These are chopped fine and put inside paan to be chewed slowly. Sometimes, chopped betel nuts are also chewed by themselves.

TAAL : The fruit of the palm tree. Taaler bora means the small balls made by combining the pulp of the ripe with coconut, flour and sugar and deep frying them.

TATTO : The ceremonial array of gifts sent by the groom to his bride before the wedding occurs.

TELEBHAJA : Literally, fried in oil. A collective term denoting any of several vegetables dipped in batter and fried in oil as a savoury snack or to be served with rice.

THAKURGHAR : The room of a Hindu home where the images of gods are kept.

UCHCHE : The smaller variety of bitter gourd.

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Ref:- http://jng_chef.tripod.com/Bengali_Culture.htm

This is life ! (Ei to Jibon!)

Monday, September 28, 2009

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Saturday, September 26, 2009

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Bangali Sanskriti - 'Bengali Culture'