The sweet flavour of tradition: mithai, chakli and other tastes of Diwali

Never mind the chocolates and macarons or whatever is the oh-so-fancy sweet of the season. If you don’t have some traditional items on your Diwali thaali, then let’s face it: it’s not really a Diwali thali. The sinfully-sweet and ghee-dipped laddoos top the list of festive mithai. Diwali brings to mind laddoos made with besan (chickpea flour), rava or suji (semolina) or dry fruit. The tightly-curled spirals of chakli are also old favourites. Crispy chivda, also known as chevdo, bhuso, chanachur – depending on which part of India you are from – adds dashes of spice to the thali. There’s also a tradition of soft, sweet and gooey halva. Some opt for the firmer, gummy version that has raisins or sunflower seeds. Another favourite is the barfi, daintily wrapped in silver foil. And finally, there’s the karanji or gujiya that fills your mouth with the flavours of coconut and khoya. Regional specialities “Festivals are celebrated with sweets made with ingredients that change depending on what is cultivated and available in a particular region,” says Prof Mohsina Mukadam, who has completed her PhD on food and now heads up the department of history at R Ruia College, Mumbai. The sweetmeats used for celebrations in the north are milk and khoya-based because dairy has traditionally been an important source of livelihood in that part of India. So we have sweets like the creamy barfi and ghee-laden motichoor laddoo coming from these regions. Since winters are severe in the north, dry fruits are a staple here, says Prof Mukadam, and they find their way into many recipes. Over in the east, in Bengal, the weather is more temperate, there are fewer dry fruits in sweets and cottage cheese is the favoured ingredient in sweets. Often, the sweet is steeped in sugar or jaggery syrup, which works as a preservative of sorts. [caption id=“attachment_1766645” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Reuters[/caption] Diwali is a festival that comes after new grain is harvested and so, many sweets and snacks are made with either one grain or a combination of grains. For instance, chakli is believed to have originated in Karnataka. The Supa Shastra by Mangarasa, a treatise on food written about 1509 was translated into Marathi as early as the 19th century by Ramchandra Gupte. A recipe of chakli is mentioned in it and there is a footnote by Gupte where he says the sieve used to make it is available in Karnataka. Mukadam says chakli made of urad dal and rice was native to Karnataka and then its variations were created all over the country by replacing the urad with local grains. Nostalgia calling When she was young, Dadar resident Sulabha Rahatekar knew Diwali was round the corner when the wafting aroma of roasted grains, melted jaggery, pounding of spices filled people’s homes. “We would wait excitedly to scrape the stuck-to-the-pan ends of fried sweets, snacks, the drippings of scrapped coconut mixed with sugar and spices in karanjis," recalls Rahatekar, who is now 75. “My mother would shoo us children away promising us that we could ‘clean up’ the utensils in which the sweetmeats were made.” As a working woman, Rahtekar just couldn’t find the time to replicate those moments for her children. For those who want to keep alive the tradition of making Diwali sweets and snacks at home, the best option are the firms that have come up with mixes that make the preparatory process less time-consuming. The easiest option, though, is to go over to your nearest sweet shop and put a few boxes together, for yourself, your family and your friends. It may not be the same as home-made sweets, but it’s the thought that counts and nothing says “Happy Diwali” like a box of mithai or dry fruits. With sweet shops open round the year, do we really need a festival anyways to indulge in feasting? If you yearn for chakli, chivda or laddoo, do you really need to wait for Diwali? Once upon a time, waiting for the festive season and all that came with it – the weather, the ingredients as well as the occasion – was the normal way of life. Today, however, this is changing. As the home traditions are effectively outsourced to professionals and shops, festivals don’t mark our calendars in quite the same way. Narayani Hebbar, better known as Aaji to her neighbourhood in Kalyan, remembers when she was a child, her family would shop for the entire year during Diwali and that was what made shopping a thrill. “There is a joy in waiting, longing and then treasuring things that our parents got us from their bonuses at work,” says Hebbar. “Getting things even before you can think of it fully is no fun.” That certainly is food for thought, but whatever the impact of commercialisation on our society, the happy excitement at Diwali, with its lights and sweets and fireworks, hasn’t faded for most of us. So bring out your thalis and heap it with Diwali mithai and nibbles. There’s a lot to be said for traditions that involve delicious food and good cheer.