Uttam Rao I December 21, 2021

Pretenders! That is what I will call any category of food that poses to be sweets but is not BENGALI SWEETS! To me that category is taken, that battle is over! Motichur, pedha, kalakand and other “pretenders” can stand by respectfully and pay homage. Bengali sweets stand-alone, so bow to the King!

Some of the most ecstatic moments in my life have been biting into an “Aabaar Khabo” and feeling it melt away into heaven meant for flavours! Or even slicing the frozen crust of pinkish “mishti doi” with a wooden spoon and momentarily regretting that I broke the crust before gulping it all down gratefully! And I haven’t even gotten yet to “Nolen Gurer Sondesh“, which makes you wish that the year were 12 Decembers, so it would be in season throughout! The “roshogolla” and the “sondesh” everyone knows about, and the more you talk of these, the more you drive your greedy pallette into unspoken agony. Make no mistake: I would trade an entire corporate career for the brief existence of a fly that can circle the dizzying array of sweets stacked up in ANY Bengali sweets shop.
Did I say sweets?
I am sorry. I should have said “mishti“. Any other word can be stuck on the pretenders. And everybody else is welcome to them.

To me, I can only close my eyes with some religious fervor when I am biting into “mishti“.