How Indian states revel in the goodness of jaggery

Orissa

For more than 20 years we have been buying jaggery from a farmer in a nearby village who moves to the neighborhood during Sankranti. warts uncle) as he is affectionately called by regular customers, travels 30 kilometers carrying two pottery on his Luna Good, each is covered with a hessian fabric for cushioning. Good Each container is different. One is slightly softer that is used for making pitas, while the other is hard. Good With long shelf life. It marks the beginning of the festival as Sankranti is incomplete without Pitha.

As the festival approaches, the sweet fragrance of the locality Good And like rice flour, pittu is made in every household. Some of the common peethas are Urse, Monda and Gheela.

not flattering Good Good quality supplies can also be found at Tal Guda Bhawan, a state owned outlet in Cuttack.

Rachit Kirtiman is a Professional Freelance Chef

Bengal

If I don’t know the source, I won’t buy it Good, In my growing up years, we had some date palm trees. siulis (Jaggery makers) used to come to our house in Midnapore to collect nectar and make it in our premises. huge as steam Shaltis (in the pan Good made of) Rose, the field will be enveloped in a sweet scent. After the jaggery was prepared, it was packed for the household and also for the relatives. I live in a new city, near the airport and thankfully I found out siulis who come to the place to prepare Good and sell to customers. Before I Explore Seulis in New Town, I’ll Source Good From an NGO that works with farmers. i like to make Milk pitha, husband curses, sucked payesh, doula pitha or my back, I get my bag of jaggery from Birbhum, Shantiniketan.

Sayantani Mohapatra is an influential person from Kolkata

Assam

My grandfather used to add hot water to the jaggery to check its quality; If there was no residual material at the bottom, it meant that the jaggery was of good quality. We also follow the same method. Till date I live in Almora, I have always depended on my mother for the right jaggery. We don’t remember buying it from stores; It is procured either directly from the farmer or from a known source. A lot of jaggery makers come to Tezpur where my parents live to make jaggery. Sugarcane farmers sell the juice to these manufacturers or bring the juice to make jaggery. Our relatives living in Jamugurihat in Sonitpur district of Assam have always ensured that we never have to search for good jaggery.

During each Magh Bigu (solstice) we hear stories of sugarcane fields being a good haven for Joha Mal/Bobcats and how they come face to face with humans while making jaggery. my personal favorite breakfast is with jaggery Muri Laru (Puffed rice jaggery laddoos).

Irene Kashyap is an influential figure in Almora who has created history for the traditional cuisine of Northeast and Almora.

Hyderabad

While the festival calls for puja, family get-togethers, I look forward to the food. Sankranti for me means snacks like Chegodi, Janthikalu, Belum Gavalu, Aselu, Pakundalu, Chakkilu even more. Most of the Sankranti specials involve jaggery and we ensure that the jaggery used is the best. I get my jaggery from our village in Saluru (a village on the Andhra-Orissa border). It is processed locally and is called jiguru/jigata/kundbelum and has a distinctive golden brown color, sharp sweet smell and taste. It’s an unadulterated brown molasses that’s hard to break, so you’ll probably need a hammer and chisel. It is also lighter and more viscous in color unlike the regular store-bought ones. Though these snacks are now available throughout the year, but it is the seasonal snacks prepared from jaggery during winters that keep us warm from the low temperature.

Hyderabad based blogger Bharat Suthapalli

Kerala

As someone who has been giving Mumbai a taste of vegetarian Kerala cuisine over the years, I have found that my job involves not only cooking, but sometimes educating my clients about the names and importance of certain dishes. includes doing. For example, appam is not just that indulgent thing to eat with chicken curry.

Another important part of my work involves sourcing authentic, local ingredients from farms across Kerala. It also contains my favorite marayoor jaggery. The Marayoor region is in the Idukki district of Kerala. I procure unrefined marayoor jaggery from small scale farmers located there. Molasses comes in large clumps, and has a lovely creamy texture once grated and melted. It has a sour taste that is not overly sweet, and it blends beautifully with coconut milk. Many of my dishes include marayoor Government: (as we call it in Malayalam), not only Payasam, I use it to make a little sweetUniyappams, an important dish during Onam.

Mumbai is currently preparing for Sankranti with full feast. For the people of Kerala, however, the next big celebration will be Vishu in April. Till then, I will continue to cook Marayur ke with lots of jaggery which I usually cook.

Marina Balakrishnan is the chef and founder of the veteran dining brand Oottupura,

Gujarat

In Gujarat, jaggery is associated with good news. Whenever there is some good news, we saymake money, DoGaur DhannaRitual, which is the distribution of a jaggery coriander mixture among friends and family. One of my earliest memories associated with jaggery is my mother’s repeated admonitions, when in childhood we had a plate of khatiyawada or kutch, with its delicious taste.don’t give a damn(Jaggery balls). My mother used to say, “Eat something other than thisdon’t give a damn, It was his constant abstinence through food. The jaggery balls were like small pebbles and were broken by a fresh pound of molasses of five to ten kilograms. The freshly made balls were brought into the soil at our village house in Vallabhipur near Bhavnagar in Kathiawar. pot or oil tin.

Jaggery is used in almost all our preparations from the coveted Khatti-Meethi Dal (Sweet-Sour Dal), which includes pomp (jaggery) and Tamarind (tamarind), then Bhakri Roti (short-crust bread) sliced ​​with ghee and sprinkled with jaggery shavings and eaten as a comfort food. happiness There is a Gujarati version of an energy bar made from roasted wheat, ghee and grated jaggery. ,be happy happy“It is commonly said about this preparation that Sukhdi makes one happy, which is now part of the mid-day meal in schools.

sHeital Bhatt is a social activist from Ahmedabad and has been documenting Gujarati food for over two decades.

Punjab

I associate jaggery with Lohri, the biggest harvest festival in Punjab. It marks Uttarayan when the Sun travels north and ushers in hot days. Jaggery or jaggery is one of the five food items in Lohri plate along with sesame, groundnut. Gajak (dry sweet) and corn.

Come winters and we have masala gur or spicy jaggery in our homes. I have resumed making masala jaggery, a tradition that was discontinued. It is a mixture of melted jaggery, ginger powder, fennel, carom seeds, chironji, almonds, melon and pumpkin seeds to which ghee is added. It is set and cut into rectangular shapes Barfi, I came across an interesting jaggery recipe while researching for my TV show Lost Recipe Was in Puducherry. Puducherry used to have a thriving French community. Some soldiers came back from Vietnam, a French colony, with Vietnamese wives, who bought . These women used to prepare pork using lots of jaggery. I met a Tamil Vietnamese woman in Puducherry who is still tit-koh, In which fish sauce and jaggery are used.

sHubhra Chatterjee aka Historywali, documents the culinary traditions of India and hosts TV shows.Lost recipe’