Thread by @LOLrakshak

Today's #quizzytime: Which Indian cuisine came about due to the combination of child marriage and then the oppression the widows faced when their husbands died?
Quiz ends at 2 PM. Google if you like.

Ans: Child marriage in Bengal lead to early widowhood. The strict rules and regulations of Bengali culture did not allow these widows to consume onion, garlic or any sort of non-vegetarian food. Even masoor dal was prohibited. Within these limitations Bengali veg cuisine emerged.

The concept of utilizing everything, from stems to shoots and roots was a result of this situation. The widows creatively used leftover peels of vegetables for making dishes that Bengalis love to devour today. These include alur khosha bhaja

(a preparation of leftover potato peels which are fried black jeera and red chillies) as well fried lauer khosha bhaja (bottle gourd). In order to bring the taste of the meaty dishes back to their taste buds, they devised a way of cooking niramish dishes that tasted like meat.

Take the vegetarian egg curry or niramish deemer dalna which is made from cottage cheese, which is often given the shape of boiled egg. Another delicious recipe from the kitchens of the widows was the jackfruit curry which resembled the taste of a kosha mangsho.

Some of them were even one-pot meals like the Alur Bati Chorchori (potatoes cooked in salt, turmeric, green chillies and nigella seeds). It was eaten from the same pot in which it was cooked. Plenty of ‘bhaja’ or fried items were part of the meals, including Thor Bhaja

(fried white stem of a banana plant cooked with poppy seeds, yellow mustard, salt, turmeric and mustard oil), best with hot steamed rice.
slurrp.com/article/bengal…