In search of the vegetarian Bengali
I am truly peeved at the constant derision of Bengalis about what we eat during Pujas and religious festivals. People from both the North and South of the Vindhyas are appalled that not only do Bengalis consume meat on Puja days but at times it is also offered to the deity.
Apologists in the community try to justify by calling it — “Niramish Mangsho (vegetarian meat)”. Let me make it clear, there is no such thing. It is not even an oxymoron, but an outright misnomer. Bengalis will revolt at any suggestion of “mock meat”.
What these innocent people mean by “Niramish Mangsho” is mutton cooked without onion and garlic. That sounds as ludicrous as the Mumbai-ya concept of “Jain Chicken”. The right term is Bhog-er Mangsho or Prosadi Mangsho. click here for recipe.
But, there is indeed a “vegetarian mutton” in Bengali gastronomy. But, let us keep that for later because, Bengalis — like the French — eat in courses.
Some “non-Bengali” people carry a weird notion that, Bengalis consider fish to be vegetarian. They even have a term for it — “Jal Tori”. That is a whole lot of bull, if you would pardon my French, please.
Fish is not vegetarian. Period.
Bengalis owe no explanation to the world about why they eat fish. They are equal opportunity fish-eaters and feel no need to placate the conscience with specious theories. That is for “sattvic” omelette lovers, who have to psych themselves into believing poultry egg is vegetarian because it is unfertilised.
However, underlying these discussions is also the popular misconception of Bengalis being predominantly carnivorous. I suspect, Bengalis have themselves contributed to it on the premise that eating meat is macho. So, there may be a Freudian angle there.
But, there is no evidence to suggest Bengalis are descendants of some meat-loving Central Asian tribe, who took to eating fish only after crossing the Indus and Jhelum. If that was true, Bengal would have had a retinue of fast bowlers. Mohun Bagan and East Bengal would not have to import footballers from Nigeria. That is why, Sourav Ganguly is Bengal’s only testosterone hero.
So, there is an urgent need to bust the myth of Bengali’s aversion to vegetarian food. Even the few who reluctantly accept there is an also a vegetarian component in Bengali meals think it is limited to just aloo (potato) and begun (brinjal or baigan). That is like saying Camembert is the only French cheese.
My quest for understanding Bengali food anthropology began with the discovery of a monograph on Bengali Gastronomy by the novelist, poet, scholar and litterateur par excellence — Buddhadeva Bose. Originally written as four-part series for the Ananda Bazar Patrika, it is gold standard in food writing. Luckily, Bose left an English translation for posterity.
Bose starts by lamenting the absence of a “gastronomic counterpart of the Kamasutra”. I shall not give the game away, for those who are tempted to read the long essay.
He goes into a rhapsody, describing the food of the traditional Bengali widows, who often ate just one meal a day. He writes:
“…a beautiful style — beautiful because it is frugal, adroit in the use of edibles generally despised, and is both varied and consistently suave. The humble pumpkin-flower in the kitchen garden, chipped husk of the gourd, stalks of the water-lily, the meanest of sag and vegetables: things like these become delicious when they come from the widows' kitchen….
“You can taste a lentil paté which melts on your tongue, the succulent vine of the pumpkin laced with undercooked whole grain, fricassees of the slightly astringent green banana with fleshy smooth slightly sweet roasted jack-fruit seeds, velvety mashed arum touched up with raw mustard-paste and the fragrant green chilli — delicacies as rare as Japanese raw fish or the truffle of France.
"And the rice — you will have no idea of what rice can be until you have tasted the 'food-of-the-god' variety served not on china or brass, but on a black stone plate — the only kind permitted to widows."
If anyone thinks that being a poet Bose has taken some poetic licence in crafting his exquisite prose one should turn to the Larousse Gastronomique of Bengali Cuisine. It is the most definitive Bengali cookbook by Pragyasundari Devi. A niece of Rabindranath Tagore, she was married to the well-known Assamese Poet Lakshminath Bezbaroa.
The first volume of her encyclopedic compendium is devoted entirely to vegetarian recipes. It has recipes for over 10 kinds plain rice and 25 varieties of pulaos. Apart from the more common starched rice (Phansa Bhaat) and fermented rice (Panta Bhaat), it has smoked rice (Kharni Bhaat) and rice cooked with coconut milk (Malai Phansa Bhaat).
In pulaos, there are Fried Malai Pulao, Dolma Pulao (made with potol or parwal), Rajbhog Pulao (made of pineapple and petha), Phirni Pulao (rice vermicelli), Apple Pulao and Orange Pulao.
For those who think, Bengali khichuri is what you get in puja pandals or on a rainy day in a Bengali home (with fried hilsa, if lucky), there are 20-odd khichuri recipes. Apart from regular daal khichuris and the Bengali version of sabu dana khichuri, you have dry fruit khichuri and slow-cooked steamed khichuri. With each recipe comes suggestions of accompaniments.
My favourite section is Bhate-s and Bharta-s. Unlike the North Indian version of 'bhartas', the Bengali 'bhatey' are various kinds of mashed vegetables usually spiced up with a touch of virgin mustard oil, chopped chilies. The vegetables are usually boiled with rice — from that it derives the name 'bhatey'.
Bhatey can be the homely potato, but also other vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, all kinds of gourd (bitter, ribbed), pumpkin, yam, raw banana, sweet potato, parwal et al. Less common are jackfruit seeds, star fruit and even cucumber.
The second course is variously described as Chachchari, Chechki, Ghanta, Chhaka, Labda Dalna. To understand the nuances, we have to once again fall back on Buddhadev Bose.
“Generations of Bengali cooks (mostly women) have devised and developed a variety of dishes belonging to the same genre, but each with a specific name and distinctive in taste and flavour, all which, to the eternal amusement and irritation of the true-born Bengali, are lumped in Anglo-Indian English in that ubiquitous and imprecise word 'curry'. A 'dalna' is no more like a 'chachchari' than a horse is like a goat; to label both of them as 'curries' is just like using the term 'quadruped' when the goat or horse is meant."
Where Bengalis get stuck is on the main course. For Bengalis, as a concept vegetables are starters and at best the second course. The main course has to be more substantial —always a preparation of meat or fish. Very often both. That is when the search for something proteinous begins and usually ends chenna (cottage cheese) or dhoka.
Then there are other improvisations like kofta, kalia and dolmas and curries all made like its non-vegetarian equivalent using anything from dumur (goolar or Indian fig) to tender jackfruit cooked in the style of meat — sometimes referred as “Gacch Patha” (literally vegetarian goat) . For something subtler like “Malai Kari” even the tender lauki (bottle gourd).
For those obsessed with 'Niramish Mangsho' — let me teach them Bengalis have a 'Niramish Maccher Dimer Bora' (pakora) -r Kari — Vegetarian fish roe cake curry. Also called 'Micche Bora' (fake or mock bora), it is made of potato, poppy seeds, amchur (dry mango powder), ginger, onion, dry Kashmiri chilies.
But few know — there is a range of “dum-pukht” varieties in artesanal Bengali gourmet cuisine. Pragyasundari Devi teaches us dum-pukhts of parwal, cauliflower, turnips (shalgam), dry fruit koftas and chenna.
Chutneys and sweets can fill up another volume. So, let us leave it for some other time.
But, that brings us to the inevitable question of where can one get to eat these delicacies? Here Bose writes:
“Bengali food suffers from one serious drawback: it cannot be publicised or commercialised.
…(that) is really also its virtue; if you cannot commercialise it, you cannot vulgarise it either. Any attempt to put it on the Universal Common Market would mean a violation of its dharma, an outrage on the very it-ness of it.
“It is a product of the home and family-ties, of personal relationships — as much of science as of human affection, as much of age-old wisdom as of an intuitive response to Nature.”
Alas, the grandmothers of yore are gone and they did not pass on the secrets to this generation.
So, we are left to savouring it vicariously by reading recipe books.