BONG FOOD & RECIPES

This is my first recipe post…….

Born to an out-an-out Bengali extremely foodie family, I and my sister were brought up being aware of the differences of the “east Bengal” or “Bangal” type of cooking and the “west Bengal” or “Ghoti” type of cooking. My mother was Ghoti born in Kolkata while dad was a Bangal born in Chennai and brought up in Bangalore.  

They actually came from very different worlds. Mother, was a typical Bengali – beautiful, fair – studied in the Bengali-medium schools, had a lovely voice – learnt Hindustan classical and sang very well. She spoke only Bengali.  

Our baba, on the other hand, was born in Bangalore, studied in a convent, played cricket at the school level, spoke English fluently. Also spoke Kannada and Tamil fluently. He thought in English. He knew to speak Bengali, but didn’t know how to write. He had dark wheatish complexion and looked very much like a handsome South Indian. He got into IIT – joined it and then heard that he had also got into NDA. He left IIT to join the NDA and then the Army. He was westernised, enjoyed English movies and songs, with not much clue on Bengali songs. 

They had an arranged marriage, East met South, actually – and then we were born, I and my sister, over the next 6 years. We were, as I liked to call “Batis” – a mix of Bangals and Ghotis. 

My parents were very young when they got married – mother barely 18 and father, around 24 years. My mother didn’t know any cooking at all and learnt cooking from my “thakuma” my father’s mother. My thakuma was an absolutely superb cook. Brought up on good Bengali food (yes, my dad was born in the South, but as far as food was concerned, it was pure Bengali food that they had – east Bengali food. 

Now, each household has their own way of cooking, their own recipes of making posto and all the other traditional Bengali dishes. One of the main differences that I found growing up, between the food that my thakuma and my mother cooked and what my dida (my mother’s mother) cooked, was the addition of sugar. I see this in my mother-in-law’s (ghoti) cooking too – the ghoti’s add quite a bit of sugar to most of their food. Secondly, the bangal’s have a lot more of the “labras”, “ghanto” – basically mixed vegetables of different kinds, including leafy vegetables. Leafy vegetables does not only include things like spinach – it includes “lau shaak (leaves and steams of bottle gourd)”, kumro shaak (leaves and stems of the pumpkin plant) etc.  

Our father was quite fussy about food. He loved to eat and to feed people. Our mother turned out to a great cook, having imbibed the best in cooking from both her mothers – mother & mother-in-law. Maa picked up a lot of cooking from her friends, the wives of the army officers – across different religions, States – apart from Indian food, there was continental food and Chinese (I think Chinese is the second love – the first love being “Elish (hilsa) and rice” (mine was always dal, aloo bhaja & posto, though). Actually, you can test this out – if you go to any Chinese restaurant anywhere in India and if that city/town/village has some bongs, you will find 50%, if not more, of the crowd as bongs. 

Here I am sharing some recipes learnt from my mother.  Below is one and others are posted separately as different recipes.

Chingri diye mulo shaag (shrimps with radish leaves) 

Items 

2 bundles of radish leaves (assuming that each bundle has 4-5 radish leaves) 

Ginger paste – ½ tea spoon 

Grated coconut –  2 table spoon 

Grated coconut – chilli paste – 1 table spoon grated coconut with one 1 green chilli – make it into a coarse paste 

Salt to taste 

Sugar – ½ tea spoon 

Dry red chilli – 1 (for tempering)  

Mustard oil – 1 ½ table spoon; +1 ½ tea spoon 

Shrimps – 100 gms 

Haldi (turmeric powder) – ½ tea spoon 

Procedure 

Wash leaves, chop finely and keep aside. 

Devein the shrimps, wash well, add some salt and turmeric powder, mix well. Fry in 1 ½ tea spoon oil. 

Put kadai on the gas, add the 1 ½ table spoon oil. When hot, put the dry red chilli. Fry this till brown and keep aside. In the same oil, add the leaves. Then add the grated coconut chilli paste. Add salt to taste. Add the shrimps. Cover and cook in low heat. The leaves will release a lot of water. When it is half dry, add the grated coconut and sugar, mix well and cover and cook again till it is dry. Before removing from fire, crush lightly the fried red chilli and put it on the top. Remove from fire and serve hot with rice.