Namaskar Piyali!
-Namaskar Anubhav Come let me take you around the Gariahat market Fish is the integral part of the Bengalis Bengalis are related to Maach and Bhaat Ask any Bengali He will say that nothing matters without it Earlier like When we were kids we were told that if you eat fish then your brain cells will improve Most common fishes are these This is the Rohu This is called Katla. Brother it is katla. Isn't it?
_Yes This is Rui You see this... This is the... this way you can differentia
te The head is called Muro This is slight tapering and this is...
-It is broad This is the Pomfret We call this Bhetki in Bengali And Like this one... This is called the Tyangra People mostly prefer to buy the ones that are alive Illish How much is a kilo for? 1500 rupees 1500 rupees per kilo It goes up to almost like with the size... As the size increases the rate too increases Mostly It is said that the fishes come during the rains. It is caught then But now it is available all through the yea
r The thing is during the rains the taste is It is better Like as they say that the Salmon oils are good Similarly we Bengalis believe that hilsa is very good Mainly it is said that Bangladeshi Hilsas are very good Very tasty So those came with the people who came to Kolkata from Bangladesh They bought it with them Here there is a concept of Ghoti and Bangal Ghoti are the ones who belong to Bengal Bangals are the ones who came from Bangladesh Football is also related with these two groups. The t
wo local groups like East Bengal and Mohan Bagan Football matches are very famous They too have the same conflict... Now the cultures are so mixed People say that Now goes the fight that the Bangladeshi Hilsas are good and they bought it... Or ours is good The Ghotis who belong to here This side of people they mostly like the preparations that they make have more of mustard On the Ghoti side the preparation is lighter And the bangals prepare a heavy kind of dishes And in that, most of the time t
he taste of the fish is absent The presence of spices are more But both are good. In Bengali marriages The groom side They carry a fish to the Bride's place During the Haldi ritual Along with the turmeric paste they give mustard oil And also fish The fish is decorated like a bride It is adorned with jewelries And wrapped in Odhni. It is given as a token of friendly affection It is sent to the Bride's house The bride's family then eats it It is like It symbolizes the friendly ties between the bri
de and the bridegroom's family So that is signified by the fish They are giving you something to eat that is their favourite The fish that you see here It is called the Magur Maach Its significance is that Bengalis are fond of eating Most trouble is in the stomach It keeps happening to the Bengalis Like this fish, the Magur maach is made into a thin curry along with some vegetables Vegetables like how to say... The one that check loose motion So mainly we add the green banana, potatoes and this
Raw papaya Raw banana known as Kanch kola Potatoes and magur fish For stomach upset if you have this fish then it is good Hence in order to keep the stomach in good shape you eat fishes. So how important the fish is in Bengali culture How much it would be?
-14 kilos 14 kilo one fish does the taste varies in case of the big and small fish yes there is a difference in taste. it has more fat the fat content is too high People who like it what is this fish? This is rui. Isn't it? It is the big siz
e of the small one that we had seen there this is like the Bhetki fish that I showed you that has been made into fillets with this we make the fish fries, fingers fish fingers fish rolls he is cutting it into small pieces The thin ones are for fingers and These ones are the fillets for fries It can be fried or made into cutlets This is the muro which is quite big Ya fish head that we call Muro With this too we make a dish like the one we make with vegetables Another popular dish is called Muri
Ghonto So it is made with rice, potatoes and fish head they are mixed together It is like the pulao that is there you can call it a pulao So that is also very tasty they say that on eating the fish head, people become clever like there are more oils in here so Hence they say that your brain will also be sharp Can you see those flowers. Yes the yellow flowers.
-Yes It is the pumpkin flower that we eat as a fritter we make it into pakodas and have it with dal what is it called in your language?
-K
umro phool pumpkin is known as kumro This is the kumro, the yellow colour one It is the flower of this vegetable.
-yes Like we eat the stems and leaves of its trees as well We eat the leaves and tender shoots of the kumro, then its flower and the kumro itself what is that at the front? It is bata kochu It is a type of colocasia We just take it and grind it with coconut coconut, mustard and chillies This is just grounded into a paste and eaten with rice Is this the Maan kochu? yes it is the maan
kochu one only what else shall I give? Nothing else We remove this We discard this thing and then finely chop it Then it is made into a subzi So we removed this now you see one more came out we remove this So this has to be removed this and there is a stalk like thing inside this This part is cooked.
-yes only this part When you keep peeling this This much portion remains from this You can no more open it like petals That part we cut and use These are called Bodis They are made with lentils Like
this one has been made with Urad dal paste This one is of masoor dal The small one here, we eat it by just frying them This is made with lentils and poppy seeds Along with this I can see the puffed rice There is the batashe and cardamom And this is jaggery The nolen gur i.e the liquid one Hello! So I am Piyali's husband She has prepared something for you at home Luchi and and tarkari but I thought that since you have come to Kolkata let's make you taste a rural breakfast Earlier it was not avai
lable in kolkata now a days you get it what is it called It is called pedani porota. Padani means marna It a slang Padani means to beat it black and blue A maida dough is rolled out and then it is pan fried on the griddle Then it is crushed.
-Yes That's why it is called padani it is torn into shreds This is the jalebi and this the malpua The malpua and jalebi are eaten along with this only The Bengalis need to have a sweet with everything This parantha is sold by weight and not pieces So this is
like 100 gms This the yellow pea curry It is called the ghugni It has come from the Mednipore district There it is a very staple food With this they consume the sweet syrup Here you don't get it though They mix it up and add the syrup from top This is reminding of the Kottu paratha They beat it on the griddle and mix eggs and many other things Yes if you mix eggs to this it will taste good It would have tasted great with dim op egg The regular breakfast anywhere is usually light Let go and have
the breakfast she has prepared. What have you cooked? Luchi Tarkari and Begun Bhaja In a bengali household if guests arrive suddenly then this is the one that is whipped up easily Actually I am very happy today Because I don't get to have it normally Because I am being told that I am growing old So don't have it I always wait when a guest will come to my place and luchi will be prepared for them and i will get eat it You are making puffy luchis I am expert The things that you love can be prepar
ed easily Without this no one can be a Bengali It is called Aqua Ptychoyis It is an extract from the ajwain plant When you eat Luchi and all and have a little bit of this then you can feel that everything is digested Here a lot of attention is given to the digestion process Digestive is a part of the.... Even at weddings they serve digestives There is some sweetness in this In bengal there are two categories of people First are those who have come from Bangladesh They eat spicy food and don't li
ke sweetness in their food those who belong to this place born and brought up in India They like sweets. What other things are popular for breakfast in here? Like Luchi Tarkari Now we mostly have oats If you go to the districts to the rural places Staple food is muri Muri is the puffed rice On top of that you have the ghugni The one that we had with the pedani porota That is the staple food But there is another group of people they soak the leftover rice in water and it is called panta It is eve
n popular in Odisha.
-Pakhala Yes exactly. If you come to Kolkata i.e urban side Of course Luchi is the common household food Now a days both husband and wives are going for jobs so it can't be made that often So Sunday is a special day for we Bengalis We call it Lyad You must have heard it Lyad is a common part of Bengali So the person affected by lyad will get up at 10 am then he will surely go to the market Then he will get mutton which is a must on Sundays and it is prepared with potatoes Wh
ile it is being prepared, he has to have Luchi during that time Sunday morning breakfast without Luchi is very difficult And the breakfast available on the streets The main thing is the dim or egg toast It is bread placed over an omelette they wrap it and give it to eat Here you will get very little people who eat to live Everyone lives to eat I am the one who wake up in the morning and think especially on Sundays, what to eat today? The thinking begins from Saturday Like what will be the breakf
ast that morning If you are asked to describe in three parts you have told about Bengali people Tell us something about the Bengali culture and food. Broadly. Bengali food is a mixture of lot of things One thing is that there is a huge difference between the East Bengal food and the west Bengal food West Bengal food has got a lot of influences from different kind of cuisines For examples British have rules and after that Mughals The Awadhi food has a huge influence over here So biryani has becom
e a staple over here In bengal Even after that Before the British there was Dutch influence there is a french influence. There is a place called chandannagar It used to be a French colony If you go there, even today you will get the french bakeries There is a place called bandel. the cheese is very famous there The cheese is almost as per the cheese of any European or international standard And it is home made So those influences have come cakes bakeries has a huge part in Bengal If you go to Ne
w Market there you will get cakes that cake store is almost hundred year old So there is a lot of influence that has come Like any Indian... this culture has adopted a lot of For example Shukto which is an essential Bengali dish It is a mixed vegetable actually. it is a curry That shukto had actually come from Portugal That's what people say, but But there are lot of influences and Bengalis normally are...they are very foodie Every household has a particular type of making fish which is very typ
ical to that family We say that my maternal aunt's that fish curry is very good The fish curry from my paternal uncle's house was very good. So that is the thing that in every house it is cooked in a different way which is very special to that house hold If you see the terrain of West Bengal , it is wide It starts from the Himalayas on top Below you have the delta You have the river fish and the sea fish as it has a sea front as well If you go to the west bengal i.e the Purulia and all The terr
ain is absolutely different The colour of the soil over there is red So it is almost a mix of Bihar, Odish and the Jharkhand side There is a different cuisine over there If you go to the North you have a huge Tibetan influence So it is a mixture Chinese food is also very popular There is huge Chinese community residing in Bengal for the last hundred years They have their own kind of cooking What other things are there like the Boroline and the Digestive During our childhood we were taught two th
ree things One without Horlicks a man can never be a man Now I don't know the case We had to have Horlicks Another thing is the Margo soap I never understood why the Bengali's thought that it had so much health I have never liked it but I had to use it there was the Sunlight washing bar Certain things are there which are very very Bengali My relatives are in US or Uk whenever I go there Its like do get a Boroline Its like why should I get Borolline but I have to And in the Bengali kitchen you wi
ll find the mustard oil You will get poppy seeds without mustard oil and poppy seeds the Bengali kitchen is incomplete Durga Puja is nor a all a religious festival here It is a festival And people... like the residents of our society Some have come from Bihar someone from UP We had gathered for the Puja meeting So we all spoke for two hours And they said that brother you all didn't speak about the puja even for a minute Because the fifty of us were planning about menu We were planning that for t
he five days what will be eaten for lunch and dinner So they were irritated They said that since the morning we are seeing... Is it a food related meeting or puja related meeting He has an everyday quota for sweets Since now he has had a Rosogolla So he won't have the Sandesh now and will reserve it for dinner So he is a typical Bengali If he doesn't end his meal with a sweet then the meal won't be completed. Actually Kolkata Since I have stayed in different parts of India What I feel now It is
a matter of fun as well that Kolkata people have their own opinion almost on every topic So the opinion actually gets inculcated into them because of what is called Adda Go to any paara or community space You will find a small designated spot where elderly men sit together with their teas They are usually retired personals But the culture of Adda is basically everywhere The adda is of course it has given birth to a lot of revolution But it is a quintessential Bengali thing But what I have felt i
s that Bengalis are bit culturally inclined people
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