The other day while savoring a moderately tolerable Bengali fare in an eatery I was wondering why I don’t ever talk about the one thing in life I am most passionate about, FOOD, in my blog, and if I am talking about food why shouldn’t I talk about the cuisine I know the best ...
To a casual sampler Bengali cuisine is all about exotic preparations of fish in mustard sauce, most connoisseurs don’t bother exploring further, but if one were to do so one would discover a veritable subcuisine of vegetarian delights, Bengal is blessed with a natural vegetation which would put any greenhouse to shame,therefore vegetables are an important part of every Bengali meal, in fact everyday Bengali meals are characterized by the extensive use of vegetables, the focus is on the fine balance between nutrition and taste…
The starting course comprises something bitter, most commonly a shukto (yummm a vegetable stew with a bitter edge ,because of the use of korela , bitter gourd, in it) or nim begun (tender neem leaves fried with eggplants, yuck never could bring myself to like it).
Rice of course is the staple and remains so throughout the different courses. The shukto is followed by bhaja (fried anything ...yummm) and dal (umm a lentil soup) and then a torkari or chorchori which is generally a semi dry vegetable dish , and then comes the elaborate non vegetarian part (non vegetarian stuff is always so boring), fish in -kalia(semi sweet onion gravy with garam masala), malai curry(coconut gravy) ,bhapa(steamed mustard gravy), jhal(mustard gravy), jhol(relatively less spicy and the use of panch phoron, a typical Bengali spice, is a must), but even in the fish preparations there are incredible complications , some varieties of fish cannot be made in some gravies, ilish (hilsa)cannot ever be cooked in an onion gravy, that’s almost sacrilege in my mothers book…
Ok I wont talk about the meat dishes coz they gross me out…
I will make another post on Bengali sweets and chatnis, coz they deserve infinite amount of blogspace themselves…
Here are some Bengali staples I have been pining for…

Beguni; thin slices of eggplants dipped in gram flour batter and deep fried, served hot with rock salt sprinkled over it………(heaven)

Mochar ghonto : a true Bengali makes use of each and every part of the banana tree from the leaves (which is used as a plate sometimes) to the stem (called thor , it’s fried into a semi dry thingie which I hate)…but the piece de résistance is of course the dish made of banana flowers (mocha) yummmm, it has generous chunks of coconut too and is sometimes peppered with shrimps….

Plastic chatni : paper thin slices of raw papaya in sugar syrup, sounds awful , tastes heavenly, perfect accompaniment is of course fried papad (popadums).

Much muche alu bhaja: cylindrical shaped potatao crispies ,sounds like french fies but is infinitely better...

To be continued…