Bengalis of Kolkata love mouthwatering dishes and Khaibaar Pass helps them choose the best

TV reality shows, social media and food festivals like Khaibaar Pass have helped give an impetus to the culinary scene in Kolkata. Hotels and restaurants go all out to woo the food lovers with exotic dishes and food festivals keep creating new varieties of well-known products. Fuchka is a household name in Bengal and is known as golguppa in other places. These fall in the category of cheap fast foods. However, in Khaibaar Pass this has multiple varieties like chicken fuchka, ice cream fuchka, chocolate fuchka – the price range is several times more than that in the roadside stalls. ABP Ananda is a major media house in Bengal. It arranges an annual three-day food festival ‘Khaibaar Paas.’ This is where foodies arrive to taste unique culinary dishes from restaurants and food outlets in Bengal. The 8th edition of this food festival took in the city in March, 2022. ABP Ananda launches Khaibaar Paas food festival.

At this festival, those who love food can sample delicacies from innumerable food stalls and sees thousands of footfalls every day. The festival offers business opportunity to all those involved in the world of food and includes restaurants and food joints. There are major well-known brands who sponsor the event. Products include Biryanis, Kebabs, traditional Bengali dishes, sea food, sweets and snackable items to Mughlai, to Chinese and Lebanese dishes. In addition, there are fun games to maintain the festive mood. As an official of the network said - “Khaibaar Paas has been able to carve out a niche for itself in the Bengali food space.”

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Street foods for breakfast in Kolkata

People of Kolkata love to have breakfast in the form of singara (samosa) or kachuri and jiipi (jilebi). This is a combination that many households follow even though they might have regular breakfast later. The bottom line is their inherent weakness for these items. Believe it or not, the vendors begin their activities much before the day breaks. The singara and kachuri are deep fried stuff and require some preparatory work. Once they are ready, the items vanish before the snap of the finger. The next batch of customers have no other option but to wait.

As to the jilebis – these are sweet. Those who live in Kolkata love sweets. Yes, many of them know that these are harmful to health, especially those who are diabetic. In spite of this, they feel items like jiliebis can bring zing into life. This item are fried in full view of the public. They are then immersed in a huge container of sugar syrup, removed and sold to the customers. These, like the singara and kachuri, are fast moving items and vanish in the twinkling of the eye. Those who arrive late have to repent.

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Joynagarer Moah – a unique sweet of Bengal

There are several food items that are unique to West Bengal and, while others may try to imitate them, their efforts very seldom deliver that which is there in the originals. Bengalis have a sweet tooth and sweets rule the roost – in every lane and by lane, alongside the tea shops there are the shops that sell sweets. The sweets appear to be the same but, each shop has its specific patrons.
Anyway – to return to some sweets that are Bengal’s identity. There is the Joynagarer moah which is available only during the winter months. The reason is the ingredients that go into making these sweets that are the delight of Bengalis. Anyone who is returning from Kolkata during winter would invariably be weighed down by packets of this delicacy.

The moah are made from a special kind of puffed rice that are bound with jiggery – that too special nalen gur which is made out of the juice of palms trees. The juice is collected and boiled over a slow fire till the liquid crystalizes and turns solid. There is a special tact involved and the final product depends on the artist who toils over the fire to create these masterpieces. Machines cannot create these.
There was tis beautiful movie on the subject – it was the 1973 movie Saudagar and its actors were Amitabh Bachhan, Nutan and Padma Khanna.
Anyway, the Joynagarer moah of South 24 Parganas Joynagar district has now won the coveted G I (geographical indication) tag. This tag attaches great prestige to the special sweet that has a very short life and has brought joy to those who make these.
Two more equally unique Bengali sweets are the Mihidana and Sitabhog of Burdwan.
These are under evaluation by the concerned people in Chennai and a decision is expected to be made known soon.
Incidentally, a GI tag is a name or sign used on certain products which corresponds to a specific geographical location or origin. (to be continued …)

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Trip to Kolkata for Durga Pujas by Mumbai-Howrah mail via Nagpur

I had joined HAL Nashik in April and decided to visit Kolkata during October for the Durga Puja celebrations. Yes, I was getting a bit homesick and felt that a trip to Kolkata would act as a booster and be just what the doctors would have ordered.
The year was 1967 and railway reservations could be had 10 days in advance – the quota from Nashik Road was six, if I remember correctly. I had to be in queue at the railway station in time. I was staying in Deolali and getting a bus early in the morning was difficult because people of Deolali were late risers – hence, I went to the station the previous night and stayed at the station till the reservation counter opened at 8am.
I was fortunate enough to get one of the six berths and, on the scheduled day, I boarded the Mumbai-Howrah Mail via Nagpur at around 11.30pm. The compartment was reserved and meant for 75 passengers only. When I woke up in the morning and, whenever the train stopped at the scheduled stops, the people waiting on the platform would not dare to board the reserved compartments. It was taboo.
The train had a dining car attached to it and the waiters kept coming at regular intervals with their wares - tea, crispy snacks, breakfast (bread-butter-omelet) followed by lunch, more tea, more snacks and finally dinner. Since most of the waiters in this train were Bengalis, they took special care of me and other Bengalis like me who were traveling to Kolkata for the Pujas. I ordered for a plate of chicken curry and chapatis – and, thanks to my waiter, there was the leg of a chicken.
By the time I woke up next morning, the train was arriving in Kharagpur and one look out of the window revealed that I was in Bengal – the people milling around on the platform talking in Bengali, the posters of Bengali movies, the advertisements on the walls in Bengali.
And, then, the local vendors got up with their unique Bengali products like vegetable chops, shingara, sweets, jhal-muri and, of course, green coconuts.
As the train left Kharagpur and proceeded on its journey towards Kolkata, a distance of around two hours, the dining car waiter came over to collect the money towards the meals. After he finished collecting from the passengers, he came over to me and confided that he, like most young Bengalis, was a poet in his spare time. He also said that he stayed in north Kolkata, in Shyambazar and gave me his address. He wanted to meet me and exchange thoughts as man to man and not as a passenger and a waiter.
Well – as the train rolled into Howrah station, my eyes began to search for my brothers who had promised to be at the station to receive me and I began to dream of how I would spend the holidays. (to be continued…)

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School days – Bijoya Dasami and sweets

Bijoya Dasami is the last day of the Durga Puja festival. On this day, Goddess Durga, along with her children, goes back to her husband Lord Shiva in the Himalayas.
The day is a sad one because it would bring to an end the festivities but, there always remained the silver lining because, on this occasion, the younger ones would touch the feet of elders to get their blessings. And – blessings minus sweets is meaningless and certainly not in order. Therefore, there are sweets and sweets.

In our days, most of these sweets would be homemade – the elder women of the family would stay up at nights and toil with ingredients like flour, coconut and chhana to create mouthwatering delicacies that would vanish in no time.
Then there would be salty stuff like the nimkis or chanachur to add to the tastes.
And – since this Bijoya had to be attended to meticulously, we would go from one house to another, carry out the ritual of touching the feet of elders in the house and then wait for the plate of goodies. The process would not be restricted to only relatives but would also encompass neighbors as well.

Since schools would be closed, our visits would go on till lunch time and by the time we came home, we would have lost all appetite for normal lunch. (to be continued …)