The Pithe Parbon pop-up on Poush Sankranti/Bhogali bihu was on 14 January in 2018, we were lucky this time as the festival coincided with the weekend. After having missed a ‘meji’ for decades together, I was determined to have a mini ‘meji’ in our balcony, complete with a group of enthusiastic and happy people to stand around it.
The event was not so much about the significance of Poush Sankranti and Bhogali Bihu; enough has been written and said about it. The attempt was to use the occasion to bring back quite a few of the customary sweetmeats (pithe-puli) that have been fading with the march of time and have almost become obscure. The idea was to go beyond patishapta and doodh puli. Do not get me wrong, a good, pristine patishapta and a delicate doodhpuli is an art but we wanted to push boundaries and create an experience. Get our guests to appreciate how generations of women transcended the boundaries of the mundane and turned food into an art form with their sheer brilliance.
We used some recipes from the family archives; some gained through research and interaction and choose an array of eight pitha-puli that brought out the best the kitchens of Bengal had to offer. These were teamed with notun alur dom (baby potato and peas curry), sheem’er bhorta (spicy mashed flat beans), jhola gur (date palm molasses) and thickened milk. Along with ‘notun chal’, the newly harvested rice that was used to make the pithas, it was a celebration of land, produce, seasonality and art.
On the menu were –
* Moog daaler nakshi pithe, each piece hand carved with a bamboo stick, deep fried and put in a sugar syrup giving it a fragrant, melt in the mouth texture.
* Pani doula. An absolute favourite with a thin, fragrant, almost translucent rice flour shell filled with date palm jaggery. It is one of the most delicate sweetmeats one will ever come across.
* Shoru chakli and notun aloor dom. An all time favourite classic served each sanskranti at home. The curry is flavoured with aniseed and the shoru chakli should be fluffy to touch and delicate.
* Mangsher kolsi pitha, cooked with chicken and spices, this unique tasting pitha is roasted over fire inside a terracotta pot which gives it a unique smoky, earthy flavour.
* Jhinuk pitha, is named after sea shells owing to its shape. The pithas are made one piece at a time by hand and fried in ghee to the right texture. It is then served with savoury sauce, thickened milk or jhola gur.
* Bibikhana pitha is a steamed cake made of rice flour, jaggery and dry fruits.
* Chunga pitha. The most unique of them all is the chunga pitha from Sylhet. It is made with coarse rice flour, coconut, salt and sugar, stuffed inside a special variety of bamboo and roasted on fire. We served it with sheemer bhorta. (The pieces flew before we could take any photographs!!!)
* Ranga aloor puli is a mildly sweet fried dumpling made of sweet potatoes and put in sugar syrup.
