A Sweet Tradition Crafted with Bengal’s Love
Although pitha is made all year round, there was a time when pitha and payes would come with the arrival of the autumn season. Winter is the main season for pitha. However, its preparation starts in autumn.
Pitha is a very ancient food among our local foods. It is difficult to say exactly how old pitha is. Even during the Indus Valley Civilization, pitha was a type of food. Therefore, pitha is 5,000 years or more old. According to the history of pitha, barley powder was mixed with jaggery and baked in the Vedic era. Another was Apup. Barley powder was fermented and fried in a pan with ghee and made into thin chakli.
Pitha is an object of special love and respect for Bengalis. Paddy comes to the house in the month of Agrahayan, from which rice is made. Then new rice, milk, jaggery, and fruits are mixed together and offered to the gods. And on the last day of Paush, i.e. Paush Sankranti, the pitha festival is celebrated.
There are many types of pitha. The main ingredients are rice powder, coconut, sesame seeds, flour, jaggery or sugar. Sugar is either an old or new thing as a sweet ingredient. Earlier, jaggery, coconut, sesame seeds—these were the only things used to make pitha.
The ‘aske’ pitha from the story ‘Kankanmala-Kanchanmala’ of ‘Thakurmar Jhuli’ is known elsewhere as jaggery pitha. This aske pitha is very old. It looks a lot like southern idli. Aske pitha is made in a special type of clay pot. This is a variation of chitai pitha.
However, there is a difference of opinion about whether the rice powder used to make aske pitha is boiled or parboiled rice. Whatever it is, ‘Usum anche aske pitha, karda anche puli’—this is the basic formula of its recipe. While making aske, one should take care of the heat of the stove or gas. This pitha is eaten with jaggery. But Chitai Pitha can be eaten with everything, including jaggery, vegetables, and meat.
Pulipetha is basically a boiled and steamed pitha. Now it is also a fried pitha. The filling in it is mainly made of jaggery or coconut paste, sesame and jaggery paste, or kheer and sugar paste. Vegetable and potato paste filling is also very common.
The same pitha has thousands of different names. Pulipetha can also be named by changing the filling. Such pitha can also be found in Jorasanko Thakurbari. During Pitha Parvan, the Thakurbari kitchen would serve thin chakli, boiled pitha, steamed pitha, batasapta, patisapta, chirer puli, rangaa alur puli, gol alur puli, chushi pithe, kadaishutir puli, mung puli, andosa, rasbara, jaggery pitha, chhanar puli, kheer puli, chushi pitha with milk, maidar sapta puli, gol pitha, kachur pitha, laur puli. We find all these in the writings of Pragya Sundari Devi.
Many people have also eaten pitha made by mixing jaggery, coconut, sesame seeds, and rice powder together and wrapping it in banana leaves and steaming it like paturi as a child. In the village, jackfruit leaves were wrapped like a bag, palm paste was poured on it, the mouth of the bag was closed with jackfruit leaves, water was boiled in a pot, a cloth was placed on the mouth of the pot, and the leaves were placed on top of it and steamed.
This is a slightly different version of the famous Bibikhana Pitha of Bikrampur. It has a lot in common with cake, but it is not a cake. Apart from that, the last patisapta is amazing by mixing rice and flour or using beuli dal or masala instead of flour. It will be filled with coconut, jaggery, sesame or khoya masala. You can add a little nutmeg powder, crushed raisins with it.
Rice powder and beuli dal are mixed together, made into a thin batter with salt and fennel, and fried like dosa. The thing is salty but the filling is thin jaggery. Not only this, most of the pitha is accompanied by jaggery. Thin dates or sugarcane molasses.
Once upon a time, because there was no refrigerator, luchi, payas and pitha used to be stale. They had a different taste. Now, as everything is left over, pitha has lost its ‘staleness’ in the refrigerator. So, the taste of stale pitha dipped in milk or date juice has been lost. Why not try it this winter?
