A renaissance in Bengali cuisine

Arindam Sarkar

Like the French, Bengalis spend a lot of time thinking about food and on preparation and eating. So the quip: “Bengalis live to eat” and “Bengalis spend their income on food”.

There is truth in the pun but with a twist. With mushrooming of Bengali food restaurants in the city, chefs and restaurant runners are nowadays doing the thinking and cooking, while Bengali with a comfortable purse is focused on eating.

In the last 15 years, Bengali delicacies have come out of domestic kitchens to become a part of restaurants that specialize in serving only Bengali culinary delicacies. There is a renewed interest in Bengali cuisine. Restaurateur Anjan Chatterjee describes this phenomenon of rising demand of Bengali cuisine among the Bengalis and non-Bengalis as “a renaissance in Bengali cuisine” in Kolkata and India.

A peep into some premier eateries serving Bengali cuisine is revealing. Irrespective of restaurant capacity, it is full house in scorching summer afternoons. “Bohemian” and “6 Ballygunge Place” are brimming with guests waiting to bite the food their grandmothers and mothers once cooked in the kitchens. “Bhojohari Manna” is going full. The scene at “Sholoana Bangali” is no different. And last but not the least is “Oh! Calcutta”, arguably the premier Bengali food joint serving traditional and innovative Bengali cuisine.

“Bengali and non-Bengali palates are willing to try both traditional and innovative Bengali cuisine,” said Sanjoy Roy, Manager of Oh! Calcutta. “We call our venture Celebration of Bengali Cuisine.”

Interestingly, except “Oh! Calcutta”, the ambience of other restaurants is at best simple or down-market. “Bengalis love tasty and clean food served fresh and hot. If the food is not up to the standard, mere jazzing up of ambiance won’t help,” said National Award-wining film director Gautam Ghosh, who is one of the partners of Bhojohori Manna. Gautam said it was his frequent visits to Dhaka where restaurants serving Bengali foods are popular gave him the idea to set up Bhojohori Manna in 2003.

Why did it take so long to popularise Bengali cuisine commercially? Bengalis took time to adjust to the idea of having their delicacies outside their homes; lack of qualified chefs; and lack of enterprise of foodies to set up Bengali cuisine restaurants delayed ventures.

Ex-Oberoi and former Chef of “Oh! Calcutta”, Chef Joy Banerjee opened Bohemian in 2011. He has moved away from traditional to experimental food with dishes like baked crab, kolmi shakh kacha lonkar achar diye, pan-braised fish withamada sauce, vekti with amada, baked hilsa with bori crust, boneless hilsa with mustard bori. Panch phoron flavoured chicken escallops, fillets of boneless chicken grilled with panch phoron, lebupata koromcha illish, illish dom chochuri, etc.

“People love to eat tasty, innovative Bengali dishes. Spices are used differently. We also use Bagane Moshla like dhone, pudhina, parsley, celery and shulpo. Our menu is different,” Joy said. Executive Chef and Director of Savourites, Shushanta Sengupta, who runs 6 Ballygunge Place said, foodie Jiggs Kalra during his food festivals in the city in the Nineties pointed out there was not a single place to eat Bengali food and that got them thinking. “There was a dearth of restaurants serving Bengali food in the 90s. In 2004, 6 Ballygunge Place became a full-fledged Bengali cuisine restaurant,” said Sushanta, the former Chef of Zen-Oriental Restaurant of Park Hotel. “We are pioneers in Bengali cuisine in terms of recipe and consistencies.”

However, Sushanta says strong competition from North Indian and Chinese food delayed the launch of Bengali cuisine commercially. Secondly, there were no trained hands to tackle Bengali delicacies as no management institute teaches the subject; and thirdly was the challenge in making a menu that blended traditional with experimental Bengali cuisine.

Gondhoraj fried chicken, morola machr pyaji, chana motor-shutir chop, prawn finger fired are non-traditional starters.Bhapa illish, posto narkol bora, chingri macher chaa kebab, kosha mangsho, moong dal, etc., is traditional course 6 Ballygunge Place. “I firmly believe power of Bengal cuisine is pulling people. In nuclear families, traditional food is getting lost and people are seeking it in eateries,” said Sushanta, whose 6 Ballygunge Place makes 82 covers each meal.

Like Anjan Chatterjee, Sushanta believes Bengali cuisine will soon be part of world food fare because of its depth. “Most non-Bengalis who eat out are vegetarians. They believe Bengali cuisine is only fish but there are so many vegetarian items. Mindset has to change,” he said.

The very popular Bhojohori Manna has refused to experiment much with Bengali food. They are carrying forward the traditional legacy of Bengali delicacies in their restaurants with courses like dal, shukto, mochar chop, mourola bhaja, vekti fry, chanar dalna, pui shakher chochuri, potoler korma, illish shorshe, tel koi, chitol peti jhal, vekti paturi, daab chingri, lau chingri, murgir jhol, kosha mangsho, etc.

“We have adapted popular dishes of Bangladesh like Steamer Curry and from Murshidabad district the Murshidabad Raan. We introduced light mutton and chicken curries but people did not like it,” said Gautam Ghosh.

Just like Bhojohori Manna, Suruchi set-up in early 70s, perhaps the oldest Bengali food joint, maintains a low profile with a very high standard in food quality and service. The 40-seat restaurant is run by all-women staff, which cooks, takes orders, serves and bill customers.

“Our dishes from shukto to main course preparations of chitol, illish, pabda are low-priced and tasty,” said Suruchi secretary Anjana Chatterjee. Meanwhile, going pretty strong with Bengal’s palate on kosha mangsho and paratha is Golbari (bogged with union problems). Rakhi Purnima Dasgupta, who is applying the recipes of her grandmother, is doing good with Lau Chingri, mochar ghonto and mangshor jhol and luchi.

The list of Bengali restaurants is endless. “It is good that these eateries are keeping our rich, food legacy alive and I can vouch Bengalis are enjoying eating their delicacies in restaurant,” said foodie Dr Ranjit Roy. Bengali cuisine has come a long way from Padma Nadir Majhi to pice hotels on the streets, dank joints of old Kolkata to the swanky, upwardly mobile restaurants. And if the footfalls ands cheques are any indication, Bengali cuisine is here to stay commercially.

Over the centuries, Bengali cuisine whether served buffet or Ala Carte have been influenced by the nawabs, settlers and the colonizers. The staple fish and meat served with lentils and vegetables is a multi-course style peculiar to the eastern part of South Asia. And the modern “service” structure is “a’ la russe style” of French cuisine where the food is served course wise rather than all at a time.

Between 1757-1947, immigrants such as the French, Dutch, Portuguese, Jews, Chinese, Afghans and the British settled in and around Kolkata and influenced Bengali cuisine. Murshid Quli Khan became the first Nawab of Bengal under the Mughals in 1717. With the nawab and the Mughal courts came the Mughlai cuisine or Moglai with food dipped in rich sauces and extensive use of meat (especially beef).

With the exile of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh, in Metiabruz in 1856, came the famous Awadhi cuisine to Kolkata. It is said the nawab brought with him hundreds of bawarchis, khansamas and masalchis. Deriving from the Mughal cuisine, Awadh preferred meat to beef and generously used ittar (essence) of rose and kewra.

The Nawabs of Dhaka also influenced the culinary style. Their bawarchis were famous for cooking Sutli kebab, Bihari kebab, Boti kebab, etc. made from marinated mutton and beef. They cooked breads mixed with cheese, minced meat and spices. One of the famous dishes of Dhaka Nawab is the Kachchi Biryani, which is said to be better than the biryanis of Delhi and Lucknow but inferior to that of Hyderabad.

It is said the generous use of spices, meat and ghee in the Bengali cuisine came from the courts of the nawabs. “Local cuisine has always been influenced by the movement of people, who have either settled or lived for sometime and have left behind their culinary influence,” said Chef Joy Banerjee of Bohemian.

“From the Portuguese we learnt to make chana (cheese), French taught us to bake paurooti (bread), Chingri malai curry is imported from Thailand and Dolma Potol from the Armenians” said Chef Joy Banerjee. Later on, it is the Baghdadi Jews who set up Kolkata’s famous Jewish Bakeries. The Anglo-Indians also influenced Bengal’s cuisine but is now dying.

Cakes and puffed patties are delicacies that originated from the famous Jewish bakeries. The British gave the chops and cutlets, which flourishes in North Kolkata. “Street food is very much a characteristic of Kolkata. Many say their origin can be traced to the Chinese and the Marwaris, before Bengalis started setting up eateries on pavements” said Anjan Chatterjee.

Gone are the days of external influence. Consolidated as a cuisine with specific flavour and taste, Bengali food is now coming out of the home kitchens and hitting restaurants big time.