Mustard oil, mash, and memory: How Bengali cuisine serves a way of life

In a recent episode, host Kamiya Jani featured the actor par excellence, Dibyendu Bhattacharya. What followed was a crash course not just in Bengali cuisine but also in the Bengali way of being.

Our love for mustard oil and all things mashed

So let’s start with some basics of Bengali cuisine, which now over 4 lakh viewers have learnt about. We eat our meals course by course, and we never cook or serve just one dish at home. This shocked me the first time I visited a fairly well-to-do Punjabi friend’s house when I was in school. I was served chapatis, one geeli sabzi (a vegetable in gravy), and a bowl of yoghurt.

I was most concerned about whether they had fallen on hard times, but then realised this is standard fare in North Indian homes. Now, in Bengali homes, even the poorest would have rice, dal, a fried vegetable – maybe just a boiled potato mashed with some salt and mustard oil – and a small piece of fish, fried or made into a light curry flavoured with just turmeric.

We cook with and love mustard oil. When you cook with mustard oil, especially vegetable dishes, it adds a pungency and kick without overpowering them. In fact, if you weren’t told that the food was cooked in mustard oil, you wouldn’t know it. Many people are unaware that even Kashmiri food is very often cooked in mustard oil. What most don’t know is that Bengalis also eat raw mustard oil drizzled over mashed potatoes or boiled eggs. Don’t turn your nose up at that piece of information if you’re fine with drizzling olive oil over your pasta or bread.

What most don’t know is that Bengalis also eat raw mustard oil drizzled over mashed potatoes or boiled eggs. (Photo: Freepik)

Speaking of mashed potatoes and boiled eggs, Bhattacharya introduced viewers to what many Bengalis consider comfort food disguised as a delicacy.

The concept of bhaatey is essentially boiled and mashed potatoes, sometimes mixed with a boiled and mashed egg, a little onion and green chilli mashed into the mixture, drizzled with mustard oil and seasoned with salt. There are no other ingredients added. Sounds bland? It isn’t. It’s the simplest of flavours, which, when eaten with hot steamed rice, will please your taste buds no end.

We also have a concept of teto or bitters, where we mash boiled karela or ucchey with potato and season with salt, to be eaten with rice.

Garlic and onion rarely appear in our cuisine, except in chicken or mutton dishes, and onion is used sparingly in some vegetable preparations.

A true-blue Bengali spread

The meal Bhattacharya cooked was the ideal spread you would serve at home. It began with alu-ucchey bhaatey (potato and karela mashed) and alu-deem bhaatey (potato and egg mashed with onion and green chilis), followed by sauteed Kolmi saag, a water spinach that Bengalis eat, begoon bhaja (fried brinjal), tawk dal (dal with green mango), and mochar ghonto, which I’ve written about before (a dry banana flower preparation).

Then came shorshe maacher jhaal (fish cooked with freshly ground mustard, poppyseed, and coconut milk) and mutton rezala (a divine preparation of mutton cooked with yoghurt and spices, unique to Bengal). This was accompanied by rice, tomato chutney, and papad, and Gondhoraj Lebu, the most fragrant of limes, and finished with mishti doi and rosogolla.

And in case you think Bengalis must have a non-vegetarian component to every meal, the concept of pujor bhog was described. Usually cooked during Lakshmi Puja, Saraswati Puja, and Durga Puja, bhog is the name for the elaborate khichudi, accompanied by multiple types of bhaja (fried vegetables) and labra, a mixed-vegetable dish, served to devotees.

The meal ended the way my grandfather liked, with freshly folded Benarasi paan, betel leaves torn from the plant, a filling of betel nut, and other accompaniments.

What warmed my heart was seeing how the essential aspects of growing up in a slightly privileged Bengali home were on display. The child who plays the piano beautifully, the discussions on education, working women, emancipated men who cook and don’t think it emasculates them, family members who might be vegetarian but don’t collapse at the sight of their spouse eating meat. It was like the complete, ideal Bengali meal, with all the most appealing components included.

If it takes an influencer to introduce unsuspecting audiences to the wonder and nuances of Bengali cuisine, I’m all for it. I hope many more people try to prepare bhaatey as a result. But right now, all I can think of is how to get my hands on a good rezala.

Next week, I’ll be channelling Popeye and writing on one of my favourite vegetables – spinach and its wide varieties.