A Virtual Feast

                   Come April and  rising temperatures and the palate jaded by modern convenience food suddenly  yearns for a traditional multi-course Bengali meal cooked by the mater in the lazy summer days of my childhood. Bengalis have perfected the consumption of food into an art form and much thought, effort, and discussion goes into planning a meal that vanishes at the blink of an eyelid! The preparation of lunch begins with shopping for the freshest of fish and vegetables and the sight of a Bengali babu with his plastic bag doing the rounds of his favourite market is one that is indelibly associated with the Calcutta of yore. The bargaining and bantering done, the prized catch is handed over to the expert hands of the lady of the house,to be made into a repast fit for a connoisseur. The cutting of vegetables and fish is an important aspect of Bengali cooking, each dish requires a specific shape, cubed, quartered and halved. A harmonious blend of the best ingredients, pure golden mustard oil and freshly ground spices ensures culinary perfection.
                    

                      A Bengali meal encompasses all the six primary tastes, beginning from bitter, moving on to savory, spicy, sour and ending in glorious sweetness. On some special occasions I remember,meals were served on gleaming bell-metal or silver plates with innumerable small bowls arranged around it and the diner would sit cross-legged before the platter.The niceties and rituals associated with a formal Bengali meal sometimes remind me of a Japanese tea-ceremony. The aromatic, fine grained Gobindobhog rice found only in Bengal is  integral to the whole experience and the first few morsels of rice is consumed with the delightful shukto, a bitter vegetable curry made with mustard paste. As I wax eloquent about the cooling properties of shukto to my reluctant  offspring, I forget to mention that it took a lot of persuasion on my mother's part to get me to finish my share of it as a child. It is only now that I have acquired a taste for this unique dish made with mixed vegetables, boris and bitter gourd, redolent with the aroma of pure ghee. Boris are dried blobs of seasoned lentil and were made by the ladies of the house. Now of course, they fly off the super-market shelves. Shukto is followed by saag bhaaja, edible leaves that are seasoned and fried, had in combination with the pungent kasundi, a variety of mustard sauce that makes the eyes water.

                        Next comes lentils or  dal and bhaaja and the mind conjures up infinite varieties and combinations. It could be musurer dal with julienned  golden fried potato or a sliver of aromatic Gandharaaj lebu. A summer favourite is the sour dal made with green mangos.  Or moong dal made with fried fish head and a hint of sweetness. The thrifty Bengali housewife prides herself on using all edible portions of fish and vegetables and peels from potato and gourd are stir fried into the most delicious khosha bhajas. Begun bhaja, potol bhaja, kumro bhaja, I could go on and on. But it is time to move on to the charcharis, ghontos and labras, each an unique combination of vegetables cooked in their own juices without addition of water. Sometimes shrimps and bones of rui or bhetki are added to jazz up the ghonto and charchari while a labra is a mix of six vegetables. Bengali cooking appears to be simple but calls for a variety of methods, boiling, deep-frying, steaming, braising and roasting. The trick is to retain the uniqueness of each ingredient without overpowering  with spices.

                            Fish and Bengali cuisine go hand-in-hand, with more than forty varieties found in the rivers of the Ganges delta and almost all parts of the fish are consumed in different preparations. Indeed macher jhol epitomizes the Bengali Babu and he has fish in sickness or in health in the form of jhol, jhaal, kalia and many more. On special occasions, it has to be the venerable hilsa from the river Padma, lightly cooked with a burnt green chilli tempering, or mustard paste or with brinjals or simply steamed in banana leaves. Many of my culinary memories are dominated by the ilish maach, superbly cooked by my mother. Finding a good hilsa was an occasion of rejoicing in the whole family and entire meals were centred around this fish which is sometimes offered to the Goddess Saraswati. Rui or rohu fish is of course an ubiquitous presence in every Bengali household and lends itself to myriad preparations, from the paatla maacher jhol to the occasional Doi maach cooked in curd with raisins. A particular family favourite was the Chital maach muitha which owes its origin to the land of my forefathers, East Bengal. A very complicated method of preparation which unfortunately I have not been able to master makes this a very sought after dish on my Calcutta visits. And how can I forget Paabda maach, the slightly salty fish which goes so well with a garnish of dhone-paata or coriander leaves! And of course, galda chingri, bagda chingri, chingri maacher malaikari, all varieties of prawns which instantly induces a watering-mouth syndrome.  There are so many more typical Bengali fish varieties and preparations that one could go on ad infinitum. But  kosha mangsho or Bengali style mutton curry now beckons with its tantalising aroma. Cooked with yogurt and liberally spiced, it is a slightly dry preparation that goes well with fulko luchi or mishti polao and just for everybody's information I make a mean kosha mangsho!                                                

   By no means is the meal over at this point though the stomach may be groaning from over-indulgence. Now appears bowls of either chatni or ambal, a sweet sour preparation made with aamra, jalpai, chalta, green mango,tomato or any other sharp tasting fruit. Green mangos are said to prevent sun-strokes and are renowned for their cooling properties. Tomato chutni is a richer variation, sometimes made with tamarind extracts,raisins and dates and go well with fried papads.

A fitting finale to this many-layered meal can only be provided by the famed Bengali mishti doi, rosogolla, sandesh and numerous other sweets.Served in an earthenware  pot usually, the mildly sweetened  mishti doi is Bengal's contribution to the Indian gastronomic scene. Rasagollas need no introduction, Bengalis often being referred to by this moniker.Made by boiling balls of chenna in sugar syrup, it is  sheer perfection and  I challenge anyone to stop at one!! A slightly less known cousin of the rosogolla is the Bengali sandesh, chenna cooked with either gud or sugar and given a variety of shapes, like conch shells, mangoes and roses. Most Bengali sweets are light and in fact recommended for convalescents.On birthdays, payesh or rice cooked in milk and sweetened with gud  is a compulsoryitem on the menu. The sheer variety of Bengali sweets either steamed, fried or baked is such that it is the topic for another post!

And finally as we end our meal, last but not the least comes the Bangla paan which acts as a mouth freshener and digestive aid. The betel leaf is stuffed with nuts, sugar, candied fruit and fennel seeds and offered to guests as a sign of hospitality.

One of the problems of Bengali cuisine is that it cannot really be commercialized. Rare is the restaurant that will serve a Bengali meal as it is devoured in a Bengali household.Consequently non-Bengalis have a shadowy idea of what constitutes a proper Bengali Bhojon. Recently a beginning has been made by Oh Calcutta And Bhajahari Manna to present to the world an honest Bengali meal. May their ilk proliferate and Long Live Bangaliana!