BENGALI CUISINE & CULINARY CULTURE OVER AGES TILL FALL OF SENA DYNASTY

Bengalis are renowned for their culinary art. The variety of dishes that a Bengali kitchen can rustle up is unimaginable. But were the Bengalis thus before.

I was studying Niharranjan Ray’s “Bangalir Itihas”, translated into English by John W. Wood, and the name of the book is “The History of Bengali People” from the earliest times till the fall of the Sena Dynasty.

There is part of a chapter on eating habits of the Bengalis in that era. There are not many documents available regarding the food and drink, taste and palate and culinary arts of the Bengali people in that era. I have not taken reference to the names  of various Hindu religious and historical documents that appear in the chapter, but have attempted to write it as simply as my capability allows.  And I desire to share my findings with my friends.

Rice was a staple food of all classes even in those times for the Bengali. There were different ways of cooking rice, but the most normal was to eating it piping hot with ghee. The ghee was made from cow’s milk and the meal was served on green plantain leaf. Payash was another favourite food at social functions and among the people of the upper classes.

Food for the common people and the villagers consisted of hot rice with ghee, various garden vegetables, of which spinach receives special mention, jute leaves, and of course broth of maurala fish.

The menu at social functions like wedding feasts was quite different. Collected from documents of one particular wedding ceremony feast, vegetable curries were served in such excess that it was even too much for the upper-class Bengali. But, the preparation was so fine that everything was eaten. There is further description of the fan fare at the wedding of Damaynati – a white, very pungent curry prepared with yoghurt and mustard (which caused the guests to shake and slap their heads while eating); various curries of venison, goat’s meat and poultry; a curry of various ingredients, not of meat but of something notably similar (possibly green jackfruit, eechar); fish curry; and various other kinds of sweets, yoghurt and the like. To drink, a fragrant water blended with camphor was served. From Buddhist songs and couplets we learn that camphor was also used as a spice with pan.

Of the meats, venison was enjoyed a lot – especially amongst the upper classes and the hunting people like Savaras and Pullindas. Goat meat was extremely populer at all levels of society. In some regions, among certain classes of people, it was customary to eat dried meat. There is frequent mention of preparations from milk like dai, payash, khir and other sweet meats.

However, from the descriptions available, the cooking procedures, of the Bengali people, whether cooking vegetables or fish or meat, was complex and involved a great variety of ingredients.

It is noteworthy that though fish consumption was a staple diet of the Bengali people due to the multitude of rivers, streams, canals and ponds, the Aryan civilisation of the north never looked favourably at this. Bengalis also liked their meat though Buddhism and Jainism in the seventh and sixth centuries forbade these.

For Bengalis, excepting a few holy days, when only vegetarian food was consumed, there was no limitation on consumption of fish and meat on other days. However, there were certain rules on the type of fish and meat that was to be consumed.

Rohita(rohu), saphara, puti, sakura(shole) and other white scaly fish were edible by Brahmins. Oil of hilsa finds special mention as a consumable. It appears that even in ancient times as much as today, hilsa fish was one of the favourite foods of the Bengalis and that its oil was used in a number of ways. Brahmins were however forbidden to eat any fish that lived in mud-holes, fish whose mouth and head resembled a snake(like ban fish) or fish which did not have any scales. There were also prohibitions on the consumption of rotten and dried fish, though there is record that people of Bengal were very fond of eating dried fish.

Meat such as that of snail, crab, rooster, breast of stork, dusk, water-fowl, camel, cow and swine were completely forbidden, at least in the society regulated by Brahmanical laws. However, among lower-class people and the aboriginal tribes, disreputable fishes and several types of poultry were all regarded as fit for consumption.

Regarding to five clawed creatures, there was no strong objection to anyone eating iguana, rabbit, porcupine or tortoise.

Regarding vegetables, most of the vegetables we eat today, such as brinjal, gourd, pumpkin, cucumber and root vegetables have been used by Bengali people since very ancient times. In the medieval period, other vegetables, such as potato, have come into the diet of the Bengalis. Potato as we know, was brought in by the Portuguese. But, in ancient times potato did not exist in Bengal. The Bengali’s crave for various edible creepers is also a very ancient one. However, in the list of foods of the ancient Bengali, nowhere do we find mention of dal.

Among the fruits, there is frequent reference to banana, palmyra (tal shash), mango, jackfruit, coconut and sugarcane. Banana trees found place in various religious ceremonies as puja, wedding and mangal festivities. Drinking of sugarcane juice was also practised and preparation of molasses and a type of sugar cube from sugarcane juice was also practised.

In addition to milk, coconut milk,cane juice and palm juice, many kinds of alcoholic drinks were very popular in ancient Bengal. Wines prepared from molasses in Bengal were famous across India. Wines were produced from molasses, fermented rice, wheat, honey, sugarcane and palm juice.