Short and sweet: Bengal’s misti-making course looks beyond rosogolla

Experience Bengal — the sweetest part of India, the tagline of the West Bengal tourism department is literally a metaphoric representation of the Bengali palate that has become integral to its culture and tradition. True to the essence of the catchphrase, the array of sweets — from acclaimed rosogollas to trivialised lyangchas — that the state is home to, is much more than just a gastronomical delight. Misti (sweets) is so well ingrained in Bengali culture that sweet shops remained open from 12 noon to 4 pm even during the pandemic-induced lockdown in March 2020.

Some historians, in fact, believe ancient Bengal derived its name ‘Gauda Banga’ from gur or jaggery. Every variant of sweet in Bengal has an incredible story to tell about its invention and making to ensure their presence is not limited merely to Bengali culinary tradition.

How the deep-fried chena role dipped in syrup came to be known as lyancha, meaning limping in Bengali? Why is another classic creation Lady Kenny (also spelled ledikeni), a lookalike of gulab jamun, named after Lady Canning — the wife of Charles Canning, the Governor General of India during 1856-1962?

What marked the making of sita bhog, the sweet chhana pulao or how did the Portuguese influence the making of rosogolla?

These and sundry have woven the fabric of innumerable folklores, fascinating historians and common people alike for years.

Unfortunately, very little has been known outside the state about this rich legacy. Apart from rosogolla, which got Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2017, no other traditional sweet from the state has been marketed and popularised adequately.

“The sweet-making industry in the state has not been properly modernised. Sweets are mostly prepared manually and they have very short shelf life. These drawbacks are preventing the expansion of the state’s sweet-making industry,” Subir Ghosh, who owns a chain of sweet shops in Behala and Joka areas of South Kolkata, told The Federal.

Adoption of food machinery to increase production and modern packaging technology to increase the shelf life of the products can increase the scope of expansion and marketing of products beyond Bengal, he said citing how tin-packed rosogollas have found market even outside India.

But Bengal’s sweets problems extend beyond production and packing. Over the years, multiple conflicts have also led to Bengal losing many of its traditional art of misti-making.

The mass migration that was sparked off by the bloody riots in Bengal in 1946 which continued even after 1947 led to Bengal losing many of its mishit-making traditions. Bengalis once again faced death, displacement and poverty in 1971 as refugees fled then-eastern Pakistan. As scores of people were uprooted, the sweet traditions that were part of their lives were lost in the process.

To address these problems and to preserve the ‘sweet part’ of Bengal’s heritage, a non-profit has set up the state’s first-of-its-kind academy to protect the art of making Bengali sweets and desserts as some of the variants have already been lost over time.

“Bangla Misti Academy proposes to conduct short-term and hands-on programmes for young men and women to prepare them for the industry and for self-employment,” read a statement from the Santiniketan Society for Youth Empowerment, the non-profit that has set up the academy in Bolpur a few months ago. It also aims to upgrade skills of existing craftsmen regarding usage of raw materials, technology and equipment for innovation, the statement added.

The training programme covers short-term certificate courses and diplomas in sweet production. One of the important focus areas of the Bangla Misti Academy will be to educate existing and future entrepreneurs setting up sweet and dessert making enterprises regarding contemporary marketing and branding concepts.

Lauding the efforts of the nascent academy, Dr Anusua Roy Choudhury, a professor in the Bengali department at Kolkata’s Rammohan College, said the growth of the industry is crucial to keeping the sweet-tradition alive.

Bengal’s sweet trail can be divided into pre-chena and post-chena period, she said. Chena is a type of cheese prepared simply by adding food acids such as lemon juice to milk.

Prior to the arrival of Portuguese in the 16th century, the main ingredients in the Bengali sweets used to be khoya (dried milk solid) and kheers (condensed milk), she added.

Chena-based iconic sweets such as roshogolla and sandesh were added to the pantheon of Bengali confectionery only after the moiras (caste of sweet makers) learnt the trait of making chenas from the Portuguese seafarers. Initially, however, the chena was put to use by mostly Muslim confectioners as deliberate cuddling of milk was a strict no in Hindu tradition, according to many food historians such as KT Acharya.

Burdwan, Nadia, Murshidabad, Bishnupur districts of West Bengal and Dhaka, Nator, and Comillia districts of Bangladesh were the hub of sweet making in undivided Bengal. Burdwan is said to be the cradle of many iconic Bengali sweets including lyangchas and sita bhog.

The genesis of lyancha and its peculiar name traced its root to two royal families. As the story goes, the princess from the then Krishnanagar royal family was married to the prince of Burdwan.

During her pregnancy, the princess one day craved to eat a particular sweet that a moira of Krishnanagar used to make. But she did not remember the name of the sweet. She could only recollect that the confectioner used to walk with a limp. So she mentioned him as lyancha (limping).

Soon the message was sent out to Krishnanagar to locate and rush the limping-moira to Burdwan to fulfill the wish of the expecting princess. That apparently gave birth to lyancha.

Sita bhog, another iconic sweet item, has its origin in Burdwan. It’s said that the sweet pulao was prepared at the behest of the royal family during the visit of Lord Curzon to the kingdom in 1942.

Lady Kenny is another popular sweet with a British connection. A Calcutta-based (now Kolkata) confectioner Bhim Chandra Nag made the sweetmeat in the honour of Lady Canning. According to some versions Nag prepared it during her first visit to India in 1856 while others say it was created on one of her birthdays.

A tinge of bitterness is now shrouding the sweet legacy.

A whopping 23 per cent, which is almost one in every four persons, of the residents were found to be diabetic in a recent survey conducted by an NGO across a Kolkata Municipal corporation borough area. Even the Health statistics from the National Urban Diabetes Survey show nearly 12 per cent of Bengal’s population is diabetic.

The prevalence rate of diabetes in Bengal is higher than the national average, according to another health report released by ASSOCHAM last year. It said the prevalence rate of the non-communicable disease in the state is 3.53 per cent against the national average of 2.85 per cent.

“Any intake of sweets is not good for your health. There is a direct relation between the high prevalence of diabetes and the love for sweets in the state,” said Dr Pinaki Mukherjee, a renowned physician from South Kolkata.

Set with the aim to “protect and preserve the heritage of Bengali sweets and deserts”, a lot of hope rides on the shoulders of the Bangla Misti Academy to not just make trained and skilled craftsmen available to the industry, but also mould its training programmes in accordance with the requirements of health, taste and safety so that the experience of Bengali sweets doesn’t turn sour.