Food : what you are eating

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  • samsam 16425 Points
  • kartik91kartik91 Delhi1139 Points
    Wow! I am heading to west bengal next only to try these drops from heaven ! 
  • munna219777munna219777 28505 Points
    edited January 2018
    Halwa-Paratha

    Unique taste of both Halwa and Paratha. These Parathas are huge and sold by weight. Halwa is lip smacking too. Mostly enjoyed in Muslim fairs. Traditionally it is Meerut, Aligarh dish.

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    thebeautifulgameCarbon_14Deb_Bankarenesudhakar2050kartik91
  • thebeautifulgamethebeautifulgame Durgapur,India29574 Points
    http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2018/01/partitioning-food

    In West Bengal, those who left their homes in Bangladesh still feel a sense of longing for the food they left behind 

    A couple of months ago, a leading Indian publication declined to publish one of my food articles, pointing, albeit gently, to its non-vegetarian content. I wasn’t in the least bit surprised. The move was simply in keeping with the publication’s changing identity under the current political dispensation. It’s an identity that the ruling regime had sought to establish by striking hard at the food habits of Indians in the garb of religion. The politics that has since been played out with food is indicative of one simple truth – that food is identity.

     

    David Bell and Gill Valentine in their book Consuming Geographies: We are What We Eat link national identity to food, saying that “every mouthful, every meal, can tell us something about ourselves and our place in the world”. According to them, “The history of any nation’s diet is the history of the nation itself….” Much like social anthropologist Arjun Appadurai who says that “food can be used to mark and create relations of equality, intimacy or solidarity or, instead, to uphold relations signaling rank, distance or segmentation.”

     

    When my father’s transferable job brought me to Kolkata (then Calcutta) at age 13, it had been just 26 years since Partition. The scars left by the Radcliffe Line had hardly healed and refugee colonies existed cheek by jowl with the mansions of West Bengal’s elite. What struck me then was that though everyone in Calcutta was a Bengali, those from the other side of the now political divide, referred to as Bangaals, were different from the ghotis of West Bengal. To a teenager, the easiest difference to discern was in the food that both communities ate.

     

    To go back a little in time, West and East Bengal – while sharing a common cuisine – exhibited marked differences in traditions, balanced on regional bounty and food habits. The erstwhile East Bengal was predominantly multi-cultural, stretching up to Assam at one end and down to Burma at the other, the culinary styles flowing freely in between and creating distinct identities. By virtue of three major rivers flowing through it, the lush terrain yielded more than 100 different leafy greens and over 500 varieties of fish in the innumerable water bodies dotting the countryside. West Bengal, on the other hand, was just a small part of the vast canvas that was Undivided Bengal, geographically different with resources not as varied or abundant as of the east.

     

    As Arundhati Ray explains in an article titled “Food Prints of Partition”: “It’s the everyday nature of food that makes it so powerful in creating – and nurturing – a community’s identity. Kolkata’s familiar yet alien food was a daily reminder of their (the displaced) rootlessness. Here too, meals featured rice, dal, vegetables, fish. But they yearned for what their palates were accustomed to…. For the humble greens and small fish that Kolkata’s urbane markets did not deem worthy of stocking.”


    By virtue of three major rivers flowing through it, the lush terrain yielded more than 100 different leafy greens and over 500 varieties of fish in the innumerable water bodies dotting the countryside. West Bengal, on the other hand, was just a small part of the vast canvas that was Undivided Bengal, geographically different with resources not as varied or abundant as of the east.

     

    Partition, then, shattered a rich micro-regional legacy. West Bengal with its strong Vaishnav influence on food sans onion and garlic, was contemptuous of the unfamiliar East Bengali repertoire. How could turtle or pigeon meat be delicacies? Did civilised people eat snails heavy with garlic and mustard oil or eel roasted in bamboo stems? I know today why my mother, a brilliant, sought-after cook, would never mention that she added a hint of onion and garlic to certain dishes held sacrosanct by the West Bengalis. The fear of rejection was still there, almost apologetic in its expression. This struggle with identity was best played out during the famous East Bengal-Mohun Bagan football matches. The mascots were the hilsa and jumbo prawn, respectively. 

    munna219777Carbon_14Deb_Ban
  • thebeautifulgamethebeautifulgame Durgapur,India29574 Points
    http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2018/01/partitioning-food

    What, therefore, came to be known as Bengali food in the larger Indian context was the cuisine of West Bengal alone. Poppy seed paste or posto was not the East Bengali’s succour, nor was the sweet prawn malaikari the jewel in the crown or paanchphoron, the most favoured tempering.This was why even second-generation East Bengalis born in India like me who had never set foot across the Padma, continued to search for their roots, clinging to the differences instead of letting them go.

     

    Seventy years on, the lines are finally blurring – a common identity is being forged through a gastronomic blend. If one follows the Bengali restaurant trend today, much has been added on beyond the posto and malaikari and with due credit. So, alongside a Murshidabadi Raan and a Shankarpur kankra kalia, you have a Dhakai pulao, fiery Sylheti dry fish and Chittagong meat curry, in the pre-Partition Hindu styles. Smaller fish and varied meats like quail, pork, duck and rabbit have made an entry into the West Bengal repertoire, as the annual state food festival Ahare Bangla demonstrates.

    A very interesting trend has been the growing popularity of pork, another intrinsic part of Undivided Bengali cuisine. Large food groups calling themselves the Porkaholics or the Pork Addicts are loudly proclaiming their love for the meat, once taboo in West Bengal Hindu households. A common and shared Bengali identitythat has embraced the subaltern, which is evident in the appreciation of tribal cuisine, has finally taken shape. A new Bengali – one who takes pride in the diversity of cuisine – has emerged.

     

    Across the divide, in Bangladesh, the pressure of identity on a Bengali Muslim majority is also playing itself out. Bangladeshi cuisine is creating its own unique space, putting a distance between itself and the food of Bengal in India. Bangladesh saw two strikingly different nationalist movements within a short span of 25 years – in 1947 when East Bengal chose to become East Pakistan, based on a shared religion; and in 1971, when it fought fiercely to break ties with West Pakistan on grounds of conflicting cultural and linguistic identities. Under the dictatorship of General Ziaur Rahman, who became President in 1977, the Constitution was amended to uphold Bangladeshi nationalism in place of Bengali nationalism, making it clear that the Bengalis of Bangladesh were distinct from the Bengalis of India. The first, then, to be discarded was food that could connect. Instead, they fell back on their agrarian roots.

     

    In post-liberation Bangladesh, the simple bhorta, an austere mash of greens, vegetables, fish and meats, is the chosen dish along with panta bhaat (fermented rice gruel) for the nationwide Pohela Baisakh (Bengali New Year) or Bhasha Dibosh (Language Day) celebrations. This, then, at once raises it to the status of a national dish over the famed Bangladeshi pulaos and gourmet hilsa preparations. It is clear that, like language, ethnic identities are also expressed through food choices. When one thinks India, it’s curry, for England the association is fish and chips, for the US it’s the burger, and for Bangladesh the bhorta has become the symbol of its culture and tradition all over the world.

     

    Yet the two Bengals still claim Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam as their own. In West Bengal, I still call myself a Bangaal, my only proof of identity being the food my ancestors brought over with them from Dhaka, Bikrampur. My counterparts in the very same region of Bangladesh, however, eat food that is different. The complexities of our identities finally find resolution in our cooking pots. Wonder now why it’s so easy to start a fire?

    munna219777Carbon_14Deb_Ban
  • thebeautifulgamethebeautifulgame Durgapur,India29574 Points
    https://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/need-tea-coffee-shops-1502585633.html

    Why we need tea, coffee shops

    When we look at someone like Mozart who shows his unusual gift at an early age, we think it must be genetic. But studies show that genetics is a relatively small piece of the genius puzzle. Geniuses are neither born nor made. They are grown, according to Eric Weiner, author of the bestselling book The Geography of Genius (2016).

    Hard work matters. But does it explain why we see genius clusters in some places throughout history? Why would we see places like Vienna in 1900, Florence in 1500, or Silicon Valley today having such a high density of talent? Do they work harder than others? Is there something in the water? If yes, can we bottle it?

    We often ask, “What is genius?” “Who is a genius?” We don’t often ask, “Where is genius?” Weiner thinks it’s in the coffee shop which played a key role in the Vienna of 1900. Freud, the seer of the psyche, had his favourite coffee shop. So did Gustav Klimt, the symbolist painter.

    If you walked into a coffee shop in 1903 Vienna, you might find them sitting in a corner engaged in a conversation with friends and peers. Rents were high, housing was difficult to come by. Even if you had a place, it probably did not have heating. So you went to the coffee shop. It was warm, it offered great Viennese coffee, and you went for the conversation and the company. You also went for the news of the day.

    The coffee shop was the Internet of its day. It had, and it still does, newspapers on display for you to read. That’s where people found out what was going on around the world and that’s where they exchanged ideas. You broadened your horizon. There was no limit to what you could discuss. You let your mind float and drift a bit. The world collided in these coffee houses.

    It’s where people went to discuss things they could not discuss at work or even at home. Weiner suggests that we should have more coffee houses, more cafes, more “third places.” More places where we can interact with others.

    Coffee houses also offer an ecology of creativity because every creative act needs a stepping back. The “Eureka” moment often arrives when you are not consciously thinking of a problem, when you are taking a walk or sitting in a coffee shop.

    There is science behind it too. Studies show that the ideal audio atmosphere for creativity is not complete silence or loud noise. It’s something around 70 decibels – the sort of sound level we find in a coffee shop.

    The Geography of Genius sheds light on an even earlier Vienna – the Vienna of Mozart and Beethoven – the Vienna of 1780. Music was literally in the air. From the aristocrat to the average man, everybody was a musician who played the violin or the piano and went to concerts. People were not passive receivers, they were demanding of their composers. It’s almost like the city of Vienna was a co-genius that worked alongside Mozart and Beethoven and the rest to complement their creativity.

    Why are there no composers like Beethoven or Mozart today? Has the talent pool dried up? Weiner’s theory is that if you are young and ambitious today, you are more likely to end up in Silicon Valley than in Vienna. We get the geniuses we want. We now care more about technology than music or art.

    Viennese coffee shops are not the only seats of high culture. Historians say that English and Parisian coffee houses of the 17th and 18th centuries advanced ideas such as liberty, tolerance, constitutional government and separation of church and state. The coffee shops offered an alternate platform, supplementary to the universities. Political activists who challenged the establishment were denizens of these coffee houses.

    We don’t have to go that far. The famed coffee house of Kolkata had been for a long time a regular hangout of intellectuals and students before losing its lustre, something Manna Dey lamented in a timeless song. And in Dhaka, the Modhur Canteen used to be synonymous with political movements.

    Weiner’s observations have a universality that make them irresistible. What is the state of coffee houses – tea shops in our context -in Dhaka? How many places does the city offer where people can ask questions, argue and debate? Let’s rephrase the question: how many tea shops in the city have rooms for people to sit and relax? How many universities house properly maintained cafes where a student can have tea presented in a clean cup? How is it that the venerable Modhur Canteen, history frozen in wood and cement, is so ill-maintained now?

    We deserve better. The shoddily constructed roadside tea stalls need “creative destruction” – a term used by Joseph Schumpeter, the political economist, to mean “the process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionises the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.” Creative destruction is taking place everywhere whether you like it or not.

    The Americans did it with the coffee house which was invented almost five centuries ago not in Vienna or Venice but in Istanbul. While Turkish coffee shops kept on serving the traditional coffee and hookah to their clientele, Americans designed menus full of delicacies, furnished their coffee shops with large, comfortable chairs and sofas, and offered free Internet.

    Today, people go to Starbucks for reasons other than coffee alone. They go for the wi-fi, they go for the atmosphere. At a time when space for dissent seems to be diminishing at a speed faster than light, a city could use a few tea shops where evenings swell with human outcry, people getting to know each other, exchanging ideas, debating, just being.

    “Where there is tea, there is hope,” said English dramatist Arthur Pinero.

    munna219777
  • thebeautifulgamethebeautifulgame Durgapur,India29574 Points
    https://www.thestatesman.com/lifestyle/food/navratri-ashtami-prasad-chana-and-halwa-1502607411.html

    Navratri Ashtami Prasad – Chana and Halwa

    The devotees of Maa Durga offer her sooji ka halwa and kala chana Prasad.

    Chana and HalwaThe Navratras are coming to an end this weekend with Durga ashtami. The tradition of kanjak is quite popular in North India on the eighth day of navratras. The devotees of Maa Durga offer her sooji ka halwa and kala chana Prasad. Little girls from the neighborhood are welcomed at the house.

     They are worshipped by washing their feet, applying kumkum on their foreheads and tying moli on their wrists. After this ritual, they are offered kanjak prasad along with gifts and cash tokens. This ceremony winds up the navratri pooja.

    Making and serving sooji ka halwa and kala chana is a way to follow traditions with spirituality.

    Sooji (semolina) Halwa

    Ingredients:

    Sooji                                              1 cup

    Pure ghee                                      2/3 cup

    Fine grain sugar                            1.5 cups

    Water                                               4 cups

    Green cardamom powder            ½ tsp

    Almonds                                            ¼ cup (chopped)

    Raisins                                                 ¼ cup (washed)

    Dry coconut                                        ¼ cup (grated)

     Method:

    • Dry roast sooji on low flame stirring occasionally until golden brown.
    • In the meanwhile make sugar syrup boiling water and sugar together on high flame for 10 minutes.
    • Add ghee to the roasted sooji and stir for another 15 -20 minutes.
    • Add cardamom powder, almonds, raisins and coconut in it.
    • Lightly roast them too.
    • Add sugar syrup on low flame stirring continuously to ensure even cooking and avoid lumps.
    • Water will be absorbed in few minutes and the halwa will start leaving the sides of the pan.

    Black chana (Black chickpeas)

     Ingredients:

    Black chana                                  1 cup (washed and soaked in water overnight)

    Cumin seeds                                  1 tsp

    Coriander powder                         2 tsp

    Red chilli powder                           1 tsp

    Garam masala                                 ½ tsp

    Amchoor powder                            ½ tsp

    Chat masala                                       ½ tsp

    Salt                                                      To taste

    Oil                                                        1 tbsp

    Method:

    • Boil the chanas in a pressure cooker adding salt and enough water to cook them soft leaving very little water after boiling is done.
    • After the pressure comes out on its own, drain the remaining water from the chanas and keep aside.
    • Heat oil in a pan and add cumin seeds.
    • Pour the drained chanas and stir for five minutes to coat the oil.
    • Add all the spices except amchoor powder, garam masala and chat masala.
    • Cook for five more minutes so that the spices get absorbed in chanas.
    • Add the remaining chana water and cook uncovered stirring occasionally till the water gets dry.
    • Turn off the gas and sprinkle remaining spices and mix well.

    Serve hot sooji ka halwa and kala chana with garma garam poori.

    Happy Ashtami to all of you.

    kartik91munna219777
  • thebeautifulgamethebeautifulgame Durgapur,India29574 Points

    Celebrate Poila Baisakh with some Cadbury Mishti Mukh

    What’s better than mishti? Mishti with Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate. Yes, you got that right. This Nava Varsha we decided to swing away from the traditional sweets and get you some of our Cadbury Mishti faves that you could happily chomp on. 













    https://www.telegraphindia.com/lifestyle/celebrate-poila-baisakh-with-some-cadbury-mishti-mukh-223175?ref=lifestyle-ft-stry
    BrainFallINDIA
  • thebeautifulgamethebeautifulgame Durgapur,India29574 Points
    And now some Bengali lunch recipes for the occasion:

    Cheere Diye Rui Jhal
     

    Sabjir Mughlai Korma

    BrainFallINDIAmunna219777
  • goalkeepargoalkeepar Turkish occupied Cyprus29216 Points
    Chopsticks for Bengali food  :o
    munna219777
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