#bengali spice

[trinitycove]

Tea Bar 🫖

I used an old nightstand adding a tray, some tea, and accessories I already had as well as my new Pink Keurig K-MINI, Thyme & Table mug, and gold teaspoons that I was gifted for my birthday.

Very special spot to me. 🥰

[morethansalad]

Panch Phoron (Bengali Five-Spice Blend)

[faunandfloraas]

Mood of the day

[banglalocalin]

Bengali cuisine is renowned for its complex and nuanced flavor profiles, which are achieved through a careful balance of spices. The spices used in Bengali cooking are not just ingredients but integral components that define the character of the dishes. They add depth, aroma, and a distinctive taste that sets Bengali food apart from other regional cuisines.

At the heart of Bengali cooking is the use of aromatic spices such as mustard seeds, cumin, coriander, fenugreek, and nigella seeds. These spices are often used in combination to create intricate and flavorful dishes. For instance, the use of panch phoron—a five-spice blend consisting of mustard seeds, fenugreek, nigella seeds, cumin, and coriander—is a staple in Bengali cooking. This blend is used to season everything from vegetables to dals, providing a unique and recognizable taste.

[mayerhaterranna]

পিয়াজি রেসিপি | How To Make Bengali Onion Pakora | Bengali Style Piyaji Recipe | Onion Fritters

[omemade]

Chicken Jalfrezi Recipe

Chicken Jalfrezi Recipe for an Indian dish originating from Bengal during the time of the Raj. A lovely fresh tasting dish that is quite different from other curries in that is more ‘stir-fried’. The thing that makes a Jalfrezi is the stir fried, smokey, charred peppers, onion and the addition of chopped or whole green chillies. Chicken Jalfrezi has always been one of my favourites at the Indian…

[mullets]

am i crazy for saying that desi food isnt spicy. like yeah its spicy in the sense that there r lots of spices but no torkari has ever left me in tears w my face flushed and nose running like that one brand of instant ramen w the red paste good god that is so good. i forgot what i was talking about

[depressedraisin]

here's how armand can still be bengali

why do i think so? no other good reason than i am bengali myself and i want armand to be. (also assad zaman's family is from bangladesh. bengali solidarity!!!)

bengal: the region in south asia comprising present-day bangladesh and the indian states of west bengal, odisha, assam and parts of bihar.

armand said in the season one finale, that takes place in 2022, he is a 514 year old vampire. is it 514 years including or excluding his human years? let's go with including. that means armand would have been born in 1508.

now what was going on in india and bengal in 1508? well, the mughals hadn't come to india yet; it's still about two decades before babur makes his way here. delhi was under the rule of the lodi dynasty, the delhi sultanate was in its dying days. most of north india, mainly uttar pradesh and bihar was under the jaunpur sultanate. bengal was still it's own independent kingdom, called the bengal sultanate. alauddin hussain shah had just seized power and become the sultan of bengal in 1494, beginning the hussain shahi dynasty (they ruled in bengal till 1538 when the mughals captured the region).

india as a country did not exist yet. even it's conception would be a few centuries away still. the subcontinent was a collection of big and small kingdoms and sultanates, constantly warring amongst themselves, some ruled by hindu rulers others by muslims, each with their own distinct histories and cultures. bengal was one of the most prosperous and thriving among them. the bangla language and bengali culture was just beginning to develop.

vasco da gama had arrived in india in 1498, landing at kozhikode on the malabar coast. this began the arrival of the portugese in india, and soon other european colonialists followed. they soon set up their capital in goa, built forts all along the western coast and established trade through obtaining licenses and exclusive permits from local rulers. they first made their way to the bay of bengal region around 1516, with the first portugese representative- a guy called joao coelho- coming to chittagong (present day bangladesh). the first factory was set up in chittagong the next year.

the portugese traded in spices and cotton and fruits and muslin and also slaves. the european indian ocean slave trade began with the coming of the portugese in the early 16th century. slavery in south asian societies had obviously existed long before, and it was a deeply complex and diverse system of dependency and regimes of slavery. slavery of youth and children was also pretty prevalent: it would not be uncommon for poor, farming families to sell away themselves or their children to zamindars (landlords) and colonial overlords in desperation. there were many, many cases of young children being forced to get onboard ships where they'd be held agains their will and taken to europe, the americas or south-east asia. goa and lisbon were the two cities that linked the movement of goods and people between the indian and atlantic oceans, but goa wasn't the only place where enslaved children were traded in portugese india nor lisbon the only european they were taken to.

one of those kids might as well have been arun.

i know the brief glimpse at the talamasca files showed armand's origin to be in delhi but in this particular scene he clearly says that he was sent *to* delhi, thinking he was going to work on a merchant boat.

this is just a theory i have btw. armand could've been from maharastra or the deccan as well idk. anyway.

armand is a monster, a vicious, villanious creature of unfathomable powers and ferocity. but he is also so deeply tragic. he had been forcibly torn away from his people and his land. he has no memory of his family or his humanity. he has lived for over half a millenium. the india he might've known hasn't existed for centuries, and he never got to know the one that exists today. the bangla he might've spoken no one remembers anymore. he has nothing left of the human he was except that name.

further readings (STRONGLY SUGGESTED!!!):

[fireboltposts]

• I'm visiting my hometown and there was a major festival called Durga Puja a few days ago and so it made me think why not write something about it which includes my ultimate bias Bang Chan.

• Here Bang Chan is not a Stray Kids member, just a regular boy.

• Where my desi Stays at ?

• Anyways for context Durga Puja, is an annual festival originating in the Indian subcontinent which reveres and pays homage to the Hindu goddess Durga, and is also celebrated because of Durga's victory over the demon Mahishasura.

• You had met your best friend Chan when you went to study MBA in a reputed Australian university. Despite your cultural differences y'all became fast friends, bonding over similar music tastes.

• Your other friends there called you things like "two peas in a pod" and "everlasting friends", one never leaving the other alone.

• He was always in awe of your Indian/Bengali culture. You were one of those who took immense pride in their culture, never one to shy away about being Indian. He was always asking you questions about your culture and you found his curiosity really impressive and daresay, cute.

• So naturally after you went back home after your MBA y'all kept in touch for a year when it finally occurred to you that you missed your best friend and texting and video calling just wasn't enough.

• So you invited him over after informing your parents. Your Indian parents raised their eyebrow at first at you at the idea of a "forsha chele" (white guy) and after bombarding multiple questions at you about Chan like "what does he do?","what are his future plans?""do you like this boy?","where did you two meet in University, you went to befriend boys in the university instead of studying?"(at which you rolled your eyes) , your parents hesitantly agreed to have him over.

• This was Chan's first trip to a foreign country and he was excited to go meet with his best friend whom he missed a ton too.

• His flight landed at 5pm on a Tuesday in the Indian time and soon y'all headed to your home in Kolkata. The city was full of colorful banners and people, all busy shopping for the upcoming festival.

• "Wow it's crowded", Chan giggled, "but I like the smell of this flower that I'm getting, it's strong but pleasant". "You'll find this saptaparni flower growing only during this time Channie", you explain, as you go shopping after some time for some Indian attire.

• He shyly asked to try out Indian attire and you pleasantly surprised at the request. So you took him out shopping, with your protective parents in tow, who were smitten with Chan since his first "Nomoshkar" (Bengali version of Namaste, a form of Indian greeting) with folded hands. They eagerly helped the shy and overwhelmed Chan choose his outfits and you felt for a second as if he was their child and not you and you found it adorable how well he was getting along with your parents.

• Soon the days of the festival finally arrived. You had heart eyes seeing Chan in traditional attire and can't help but blush a bit at the sight of your best friend, but you'd never admit it to him, yet you showered the shy boy with compliments and he giggled cutely and went "naurrrr" and hid his face in his hands.

• He, too, was blushing and gushing at how beautiful you looked in a saree. This was his first time seeing you in Indian attire too

• For five days straight, you went to different pandals in the city. (pandal is a large, temporary, open-sided tent that is often used for religious or other gathering). He was in awe of their exquisite artwork and the decorations and fairy lights and the goddess idols displayed. He was constantly taking photos and videos on his phone. He even took goofy ,silly selfies with you.

• You were too concentrated on his childlike awe at everything going on. You had never seen him like this before and secretly you found it too too adorable.

• Then came the street food, poor boy couldn't handle too much spice but luckily you had carried some small chocolates and water with you, knowing this could be an issue. As the days went by, he had tried a lot of Indian dishes and Bengali sweets as well.

• Even the friends from your locality were smitten by this boy's charms.

• On the day of the immersion of the idol, he had joined you in dancing to the upbeat music of the band playing along with the drummers. He was feeling shy at first but you pouted "pleaseee" and how could he say no to your puppy eyes especially with you looking that beautiful in your black saree.

• Soon it was time for him to go back to Australia and you were feeling down as you didn't know when you'd meet next. Your parents packed him lots of Indian food for him and told him to go safely and call you as soon as he landed so they knew he'd be safe.

• You hugged Chan on the roof of your house, crying as you didn't want to let him go and he gently rubbed your hair whispering things like "I'll be back Y/N",don't cry please it breaks my heart".

• You hugged Chan tightly again outside the airport despite the other passengers giving you both weird looks and Channie planted a sweet kiss on your cheek which made you blush and smiled at you one last time and stepped inside the airport, waving at you.

Pdhajwisuyeja I wrote ittt finally I don't know what was I thinking ahhhh 🫣🫣.

Pic/gif credits to the respective owners, only the Durga Puja pic is mine. Do like and comment and reblog if you like. Hope you liked it 🫣.

[kheldara]

diwali kali pujo AND halloween today!!! feeling like a turbo charged indian witch lmao. do i watch spooky bengali films!? do i eat spiced pumpkin!? hahaha have a fun one lads xxxx

[studyblr-perhaps]

Updated Intro Post!

It's been over a year and a half (I think) since my previous intro post, and now that I am in my 4th (and final) year of undergrad, I wanted to make a new intro post because there are a lot of changes?

Name: Misa Pronouns: she/they Age: 21 Major: Physics

🖤After undergrad, I plan to go into experimental physics, probably towards condensed matter and hopefully somewhere along superconductivity? Idk whichever is feasible. But experimental.

🖤For now I'm letting my life take it's course, hopefully I can get into colleges abroad, so fingers crossed.

🖤I like science, humanities and definitely literature. I like culture and studying about my own and different cultures, languages and customs. I also really like sweets!

🖤Unlike the usual known Indian tastes, I come from a region with more chilies than spices, so I despise dishes with excessive spices (y'all our broth is mostly clear, wtf even is a curry-). I also dislike studying for and giving tests.

🖤My hobbies include drawing, dancing, writing, reading, journalling, crocheting, learning languages, flexing

🖤Few unrelated facts about me: I am left handed, I can fluently speak three languages- English, Hindi and Nepali and understand spoken Bengali, my aunts' houses and my own are filled with framed art pieces by me (this is a flex, yes)

I am always down to chat! So if you want to ask about physics, stem, advice on the education system, RANT about the education system (esp Indian), or just gossip, my dms are always open!

[littlefaefeather]

Black Butler manga foods/drinks

I'm sure I missed some things, but it was all things that weren't really named or specified, or I couldn't tell with certainty what they were. @sebastian-ciel-mutual-bullying this is for you! feel free to take and use as you need o7 Book 1 breakfast: poached salmon and mint salad with toast, scones, and pain de campagne on the sides, ceylon tea horribly salty lemonade dinner: Japanese green tea, gyuutatakidon, Italian red wine, apricot and green tea mille-feuille dessert: orchard fruit cake with pears, plums, and blackberries dessert: deep-dish apple raisin pie milk

Book 2 assam tea afternoon tea: keemun and summer pudding of currants and other berries lunch: stuffed cabbage and minted potato salad chocolate earl grey afternoon tea: cornmeal cake of pears and blackberries salty rosehip herbal tea

Book 3 hot milk with honey or brandy peeled apple assam tea with milk oranges with shalimar tea steak and kidney pie and salmon sandwiches messy birthday cake and donburi strawberry-decorated birthday cake

Book 4 fish chai with ginger breakfast: shrimp curry and French toast with ginger mackerel with gooseberry sauce and cottage pie

Book 5 British-style Bengali chicken curry chicken curry afternoon snack: gateau au chocolat beef curry blue lobster with seven curries curry bun assam tea white darjeeling tea champagne sushi

Book 6 Christmas pudding cookies shaped like bones fish and chips, meat pies, bread

Book 7 rice porridge dinner: milk risotto with a three-mushroom medley, a pot-au-feu of pork and wine, and a warm apple compote with yogurt sauce

Book 8 oranges afternoon tea: chocolate macarons with fruits and three-berry shortcake

Book 9 custard cream puffs red wine white wine brunch: herring pie and spinach quiche dinner: curry, and chopped vegetables for an appetizer

Book 10 dinner: soybean hamburg steaks

Book 11 elevenses: darjeeling tea and petits fours tonkatsu, shougayaki, tonjiru, tonshabu, yakiton

Book 12 cake with strawberries on top

Book 13 spiny lobster saute, roast turkey, sticky toffee pudding, fairy cakes (cupcakes) warm milk with honey

Book 14 watered-down darjeeling tea darjeeling tea dinner: roast duck and gateau chocolat

Book 15 golden syrup sponge pudding tea cakes lemon myrtle souffle glace with milk tea

Book 16 lunch: beef mince pie

Book 17 dessert: strawberries, cream, and meringue (Eton mess) with a side of iced summer pudding

Book 18 chicken pie coffee and walnut cake

Book 19 ravioli (maultaschen) and wurst soup, stewed pork with herbs and spices (eisbein), and rote grutze (sour berries boiled and chilled to jelly, served with cream) evening snack: caramel macarons, coffee cream eclairs, dark chocolate florentines. black tea ceylon tea

Book 22 earl grey tea with orange almond cake and berry tarts

Book 23 smoked salmon sandesh (milk sweets)

Book 24 soft licorice candy apples

Book 25 berry-filled pudding fish and chips and steak and ale pie gulab jamun (fried balls of dough drenched in syrup)

Book 29 kidney pie, fish and chips, and ale wild-hare pie tapioca steak

Book 30 nilgiri tea breakfast: pea soup, meatballs, croissants, boiled egg, orange jelly chicken and steamed vegetable salad, oxtail stew, pain de campagne with butter oolong tea

Book 31 candy cigarettes

[fatehbaz]

At Vauxhall Gardens, [...] giant paintings were erected in the “Pillared Saloon” of seemingly geographically opposed colonial wars: one painting of The Battle of Plassey (1757), which secured Bengal for the British East India Company, hung next to another symmetrical work that portrayed the British capture of Montreal and, later, Canada itself. That these and other sizable aesthetic works were “designed to be an immersive virtual-reality experience” testifies to Cohen’s larger claim in The Global Indies that 18th-century fashion, rank, sociability, and class were intimately bound up with race and colonialism, particularly through the period’s joint imaginary of the  “Indies.”

The Indies describes a shared fantasy - and unquestionable material reality - of wealth accumulation that yoked together the “West” (the Caribbean and North America) and “East” (the Indian subcontinent) Indies in late 18th-century British culture, a conceptual proximity so thorough and unrelenting that its effects reverberate [today] throughout the contemporary [...].

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The prelude to Ashley L. Cohen’s The Global Indies opens in a pleasure garden - not just any such garden, but the largest and most spectacular of these 18th-century sites of fashionable culture [...]: London’s Vauxhall Garden. At Vauxhall, Londoners who could afford the entrance fee were treated to an array of wonders and excesses. A well-known chapter entitled “Vauxhall” in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1847–’48), for example, finds Jos Sedley, an “indolent” officer of the East India Company recently returned to London, drunk off the garden’s signature "rack punch.”  “Everybody had rack punch at Vauxhall,” [...]. Lest a reader mistake punch for a mere artifact of the pleasure garden or a one-off comedic incident, “that bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history,” the narrator stresses about his unfolding novel. [...] Punch, an alcoholic drink popular with colonial officers of the East India Company, was usually made with a combination of five ingredients including sugar cane and spices, and probably derives from the Sanskrit word “pancha,” meaning five (and invites an etymological link with the Persian panj and with Bengali five-spice mix, panch phoreen). Rack punch’s association with Vauxhall, with India, and with Vanity Fair’s narrative construction was hardly a stretch for Thackeray’s Victorian readers, and probably registered as quite natural, though it carried more than a whiff of the unseemly. But then again, to 18th-century Britons, “natural and a little unseemly” could easily describe the “worldwide empire that stretched from the East to the West Indies” [...].

---

It’s tricky business to think seriously inside of the 18th-century’s analytic tools, but The Global Indies pulls it off, not least because Cohen is appropriately blunt [...], reminding readers of the everyday racism of the Georgians and their fashionable sociability. The book benefits, too, from a rich body of existing work [...] [by] scholars like Edward Said and Srinivaas Aravamudan. [...] [T]he “Indies mentality” enters a critical landscape that has lately taken up the connections between geographically far-flung events in modernity: North American settler colonialism, Atlantic slavery, colonialism in India, and the migration of Chinese and South Asian indentured labor.

Lest these all seem like separate histories that have produced separate discursive notions of race, critics like Lisa Lowe, Jodi Byrd, Tao Leigh Goffe, and now Cohen assure us that they are not, and that our modern ideas about race are intimately shaped by the interconnected and forced movements of Black and brown people across the world. [...]

Cohen spells out how British liberal reformers and abolitionists found a solution to ending West Indian slavery in the continuation of so-called “free” wage labor in Bengal. Sugar produced by Bengali peasants laboring under the threat of starvation came to replace sugar produced on West Indian plantations well into the 19th and 20th centuries. One only has to look up the multiple Bengal famines (1769–1770, and 1943) to calculate its effects. [...] 

[T]he architects of the [American transcontinental] railroad “imagined a new era of US hegemony in a mold cast by the imaginative geographies of British imperialism.”

---

All text above by: Ronjaunee Chatterjee. “The Colonial Mentality, Past and Present.” LA Review of Books. 3 September 2021. Published online at: lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-colonial-mentality-past-and-present/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[banglalocalin]

Buy Bengali Sunrise Posta Whole Online: Sunrise Posta is a favourable choice used in dishes to add crunch, creamy nuttiness to fillings and taste and texture to sauces and curries. In Bengal, it is a kitchen staple where this seed paste is had raw, is added to vegetables and also often made into fried patties. So next time you want to try the Bengali kancha posto bata, or want to serve up that most comforting of comfort foods, aalu posto, reach for the wholesome goodness of our Whole Posto.

[kheerkadam]

♡chanar payesh♡

hi!

Today, we're exploring the sweet, creamy delight known as Chanar Payesh! This Bengali treat is a must-have for anyone with a penchant for milky desserts and soft chana balls. Let's jump into this culinary adventure!

Step 1: Making the Chana Balls We’re going the convenient route with store-bought paneer, which makes the process quicker and just as delicious.

Crumble the Paneer: Start by crumbling the paneer into a bowl. The finer, the better – get those hands working!

Sweeten It Up: Mix in some sugar with the crumbled paneer. This will give our chana balls that sweet kick.

Shape the Spheres: Roll the sweetened paneer into small spheres. They should be about the size of marbles – just like the ones you lost under the couch as a kid.

Size Matters: Be cautious not to make them too big; they’ll puff up in the milk, and you don't want chana giants in your payesh. To be frank, I made them a bit too big. I didn't think about the fact that they would increase in size in the milk, so be sure not to make the same mistake I did.

Step 2: Preparing the Milk Time to get that creamy, dreamy base ready.

Boil the Milk: Pour whole milk into a pot and bring it to a boil. Rich, full-fat milk is your best friend here.

Spice It Up: Add cardamom seeds to the boiling milk. You could use saffron for a yellow hue, but I wanted to keep my Chanar Payesh pure white, so I skipped it. Your kitchen, your rules!

Reduce the Milk: Let the milk simmer and thicken, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Step 3: Adding the Chana Balls Now for the magic – combining the creamy milk with our sweet chana spheres.

(notice the before and after)

Simmer and Soak: Once the milk has thickened, gently add the chana balls. Let them soak and simmer, absorbing all that creamy goodness and expanding slightly.

Step 4: The Finishing Touches Time to add some flair!

Nutty Crunch: Soak some pistachios and almonds to remove their skins easily, then chop and sprinkle them over the Chanar Payesh. This adds a delightful crunch and a touch of elegance.

Fun Fact: Chanar Payesh is often made during Bengali festivals and special occasions, bringing joy and sweetness to celebrations. It's pretty much a combination of roshogollas and kheer to put it simply.

So there you have it – the ultimate guide to making Chanar Payesh, a dessert that’s as delightful to prepare as it is to eat. Whether you're a kitchen pro or a newbie, this recipe is sure to become a favorite in no time.

Stay tuned for more scrumptious recipes coming your way soon. Until then, happy cooking and even happier indulging!

Dig in and enjoy!

[desiblr-tales]

daal pitha is a traditional bihari dish. they are like rice flour dumplings and they have mixed lentils as fillings.

fafda jalebi is a traditional gujarati pairing. fafda are spicy and crunchy which is made of chickpea consists of long strips of dough which have been deep fried and jalebi are sweet, tangy and soft fried.

nimki is the bengali version of namak para. it's a tea time snack made of all purpose flour. it's usually crunchy.

kachori is a delicious deep fried pastry like snack. it's fillings depend mainly on the region.

dahi bade is a type of chaat. it is prepared by soaking vadas (fried lentil balls) in thick dahi (yogurt)

chanachur is a type of savory snack mix that usually contains fried lentils, peanuts, spices, and other crunchy ingredients

bhujia is a popular crispy snack and is prepared by using besan (gram flour) and spices

samosa is a deep fried pastry which has the filling of mashed potatoes and peas.

litti chokha is a very famous meal of bihar and jharkhand. litti has a hearty filling of sattu along with spices like ajwain and kalonji. served with chokha made with mashed potatoes, this is a complete meal.