Bengali cuisine: Encyclopedia II - Bengali cuisine - Bengali Meals

Bengali cuisine - Bengali Meals

The typical Bengali fare includes a certain sequence of food - somewhat like the courses of Western dining. Two sequences are commonly followed, one for ceremonial dinners such as a wedding and the day-to-day sequence. Both sequences have regional variations, and sometimes there are significant differences in a particular course between West Bengal and Bangladesh.

The elaborate dining habits of the Bengalis are a reflection of the attention the Bengali housewife paid to the kitchen. In modern times, this is rarely followed anymore. Courses are frequently skipped or combined with everyday meals. Meals were usually served course by course to the diners by the youngest housewives, but increasing influence of nuclear families and urbanization has replaced this. It is now common to place everything on platters in the centre of the table, and each diner serves him/herself. Ceremonial occasions such as weddings used to have elaborate serving rituals, but professional catering and buffet-style dining is now common. The traditions are far from dead, though; large family occasions and the more lavish ceremonial feasts still make sure that these rituals are observed.

Bengali cuisine - Courses in a daily meal

The foods of a daily meal are usually simpler, geared to balanced nutrition and makes extensive use of vegetables. The courses progress broadly from lighter to richer and heavier. Rice remains common through out the meal until the chutney course.

The starting course is a bitter. The bitter changes with the season but common ones are karela (bitter gourd) which is available nearly throughout the year, or tender neem leaves in spring. Bitters are mostly deep fried in oil, or steamed with cubed potatoes. Portions are usually very small - a spoonful or so to be had with rice - and this course is considered to be both a palate-cleanser and of great medicinal value.

Another bittersweet preparation usually eaten in summer, especially in West Bengal, is a soupy mixture of vegetables in a ginger-mustard sauce, called shukto. This usually follows the dry bitters, but sometimes replaces it, and is eaten in much bigger portions. Shukto is a complex dish, a fine balance of many different kinds of tastes and textures and is often a critical measure of a Bengali housewife's abilities in the kitchen. However, shukto is not popular in Bangladesh.

This is followed by shaak (leafy vegetables) such as spinach, fenugreek, or amaranth. The shaak can be steamed or cooked in oil with other vegetables such as begoon (aubergine). Steamed shaak is sometimes accompanied by a sharp mustard paste called Kasundi.

The dal course is usually the most substantial course, especially in West Bengal. It is eaten with a generous portion of rice and a number of accompaniments. In Bangladesh, dal is usually eaten at the end of the meal, while in West Bengal it is eaten somewhat before the fish and meat courses.

A common accompaniment to dal is bhaja (fritters). Bhaja literally means deep-fried; most vegetables are good candidates but aubergine or pumpkin or plain potatoes are common. Fried fish (mach bhaja) is also common, specially rui (rohu) and ilish (hilsa) fishes. Bhaja is sometimes coated in a besan (chickpea flour) and posto (poppyseed) batter. A close cousin of bhaja is bora or deep-fried savoury balls usually made from posto (poppyseed) paste or coconut mince. Another variant is fried pointed gourd as potoler dorma with roe stuffing.

Another accompaniment is a vegetable preparation usually made of multiple vegetables stewed slowly together without any added water. Labra, Chorchori, Ghonto, or Chanchra are all traditional cooking styles. There also are a host of other preparations that do not come under any of these categories and are simply called Torkari - the word merely means vegetable in Bengali. Sometimes these preparations may have spare pieces of fish such as bits of the head or gills, or spare portions of meat.

The next course is the fish course. Common fish delicacies include maacher jhol, tel koi, Pabda maacher jhaal, Doi maachh, Chingri maachh (shrimp) malai curry, and bhaapa ilish (steamed hilsa).

Then comes the meat course. The steep religious divide among the Bengalis of Bangladesh and West Bengal is most evident when it comes to the meat course. Meat is readily comsumed in Bangladesh and some consider it the meal's "cream of the crop" course. To this day, the Hindu population in West Bengal do not typically consume beef. However, the Muslim population in West Bengal enjoy a variety of meat dishes. Mutton or goat meat is traditionally the meat of choice, especially West Bengal, but chicken and eggs are also commonly consumed. Beef is popular in Bangladesh, but not in most parts of West Bengal. Pork is very rare except among the Anglo-Indians and the Chinese in West Bengal.

Finally comes the chutney course, which is typically tangy and sweet; the chutney is usually made of mangoes, tomatoes, pineapple, tamarind, raw papaya, or just a combination of fruits and dry fruits. In Bangladesh, chuteny is ususlly eaten during the dal course and no separate course is dedicated to churteny. Papads, a type of thin flaky flat bread, usually accompany the chutneys.

Bengali cuisine - Sweets

Sweets occupy an important place in the diet of Bengalis and at their social ceremonies. It is an ancient custom among Hindus to distribute sweets during festivities. The confectionary industry has flourished because of its close association with social and religious ceremonies. Competition and changing tastes have helped to create many new sweets, and today this industry has grown within the country as well as all over the world.

The sweets of Bengal are generally made of sweetened cottage cheese (chhenna), Khoa (reduced solidified milk), or flours of different cereals and pulses. Some important sweets of Bengal are:

Made from sweetened, finely ground fresh paneer, sandesh in all its variants is among the most popular Bengali sweets. The basic sandesh has been considerably enhanced by the many famous confectioners of Bengal, and now a few hundred different varieties exist, from the simple kachagolla to the complicated abar khabo, jolbhora or indrani. Another varint is the korapak or hard mixture, which blends rice flour with the paneer to form a shell-like dough that last much longer.

Rasgulla is one of the most widely consumed sweets. The basic version has many regional variations.

Pantua is somewhat similar to the Rasgulla, except that the balls are fried in edible oil or ghee (clarified butter) until golden or deep brown before being put in syrup.

ChamCham (especially from Porabari, Tangail District in Bangladesh) goes back about 150 years. The modern version of this sweet was inspired by Raja Ramgore of Balia district in Uttar Pradesh in India. It was then further modernised by his grandson, Matilal Gore. This oval-shaped sweet is reddish brown in colour and it is of a denser texture than the rasagolla. It can also be preserved longer. Granules of mawa or dried milk can also be sprinkled over chamcham.

Several varieties of yoghurts such as misti doi, custards, and rice pudding (kheer) are also popular in both Bangladesh and West Bengal.

Sandesh, chhanar jilepi, kalo jam, darbesh, raghobshai, payesh, nalengurer sandesh, shor bhaja and an innumerable variety are just a few examples of sweets in Bengali cuisine.

In both Bangladesh and West Bengal, the tradition of making cakes, locally known as Pithas still flourishes. They are usually made from rice or wheat flour mixed with sugar, jaggery, grated coconut etc. Pithas are usually enjoyed with the sweet syrups of Khejurer Gur (date tree molasses). They're usually fried or steamed; the most common forms of these cakes include Bhapa pitha (steamed), Pakan pitha (fried), Puli pitha (dumplings), etc.

Pithas are usually a celebration of the new crop, and often associated with harvest festivals.

Bengali cuisine - Snacks

Moori (puffed rice) is made by heating sand in a pot, and then throwing in grains of rice. The rice can have been washed in brine to provide seasoning. The rice puffs up and is separated from the sand by a strainer. Moori is very popular in Bengal and used in a wide variety of secular and religious occasions, or even just munched plain.

A variant of moori is khoa, which is flattened puffed rice. Both varieties are used to make many different snack foods.

One of the most popular and iconic snack foods of Bengal, jhal literally means hot and spicy. Jhal-moori is puffed rice with spices, vegetables and raw mustard oil. Depending on what is added, there are many kinds of Jhal-muri but the most common is a Bhorta made of chopped onion, roasted ground cumin, green or roasted chillies, mustard oil and fresh coriander.

A moa is made by taking Moori with gur as binder and forming it into a ball. Another popular kind of moa is Joynagar moa, which uses khoa and a sugar-milk-spices mixture as binder.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Bengali Meals", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki