Lunching with Locals in Kolkata?

(To open the embedded Facebook posts fully for the recipes and details, just click on the date/time under the heading Food and Travel Secrets.)

Since I first heard about Traveling Spoon I’ve loved the idea. It brings travellers together with local hosts who want to share an authentic experience of regional cuisine and hospitality. 

So when I got the chance to become an ambassador for Traveling Spoon I jumped at it. And what a delight my first assignment was. I came away with new friends and a rich understanding of Bengali cooking.

Traveling Spoon

Steph and Aashi started Traveling Spoon in 2103 as a way to connect travellers wanting to meet a local and share a meal in their home with hosts who are passionate about welcoming guests and introducing them to their culture and food through cooking experiences and meals. 

As part of the program, Traveling Spoon needs to ensure that every experience will be a pleasure for both host and guest and so an ambassador visits as a guest and provides feedback on the traveler experience. 

Zinnia

This is how I met Zinnia and her husband who invited us to their house for lunch. But it was so much more for us.

Zinnia and her husband are blessed with the gift of hospitality and clearly have a passion for opening their comfortable and welcoming home and sharing their knowledge of Bengali cuisine with guests. They are excellent communicators and engaged us in a rich and detailed interactive discussion about what makes Bengali cuisine unique, why Bengalis love their food and why they are willing to spend proportionately more on food than other regions. 

I was fascinated to learn that Zinnia keeps many of her ingredients in the freezer because in the humid Kolkata weather they deteriorate rapidly. Without a freezer you would need to dry them out every couple of weeks to keep them. Nuts, rice, pulses, flours and even cornflakes all go into the freezer!

Their generosity included a delicious menu of Bengali classic dishes, starting with a refreshing lassi and snacks and the opportunity to get in the kitchen and share in the preparation of a Bengali dish for the meal. 

I will always be grateful to Zinnia and her husband for the wonderful afternoon they gave us and for teaching me so much about Bengali good.

What makes Bengali Cuisine Special?

They love fish, especially the sweeter river fish and sweets! Mustard oil and mustard seeds feature in their dishes and they use a five spice mix called Panch Phoran (mustard seeds, nigella, black jeera, fennel and fenugreek). 

In brief, a Bengali meal will start with rice and a palate cleanser like shukto (bitter gourd and other vegetables) and saag greens followed by the vegetarian dishes and finally the non-vegetarian dishes especially a favourite river fish with plenty of bones called Ilish or Hilsa. Begali luchi puffed breads (like poori) also accompany the drier dishes. Before the real desserts there’s a sweet chutney and papad.

Finally a sweet like curd based, date palm jaggery sweetened sandesh, mishti doi (reduced and sweetened yogurt), rasagulla or payesh (Bengali style rice pudding flavored with cinnamon and also sweetened with date palm sugar) finishes the meal before Paan in beetle leaf and an aniseed mouth freshener.

As part of our meal I was able to cook the Bengali dish Shorshe Chingri (prawns cooked in mustard seed paste).

Zinnia instructed me as I heated the mustard oil to smoking point then added nigella seeds, then the prawns with tumeric and salt. The mustard seeds were ground to a paste with green chilli and added to the prawns. 

Our lunch included my Shorshe chingri curry, Banda copier torkari (cabbage curry), salad, Bhaj Moong (roasted dal) Mango chutney with rice and Fish Kalia finished off with fresh mango pudding and finally Darjeeling tea and a very kind and thoughtful sandesh from the best sweet shop in town.

What an experience it was. A meal with Zinnia and her husband was like visiting good friends who trusted us enough to open their hearts as well as their home. 

I came away with a good understanding of Bengali cuisine and new friends. For a few hours we felt very valued, spoilt and blessed.

Lakshmi

But I was doubly blessed because we were also invited to Lakshmi’s house for lunch with her husband who are another very generous and welcoming Kolkata couple wanting to share their lovely and warm hospitality with travellers. Like our first Traveling Spoon experience, Lakshmi and her husband also now feel like our friends. 

Lakshmi loves to cook Rajasthani dishes, the cuisine she grew up with in Kolkata. Lakshmi’s menu was full of dishes that show the desert influenced cuisine of Rajasthan based on legumes and milk products because fresh vegetables are not always easily available. These dishes include home churned butter from curd, a Dal Bara appetiser, Dahi Bada, Marsala Papad, Gram Roti (Misi Roti), Gatta ki Subji, Fried Dal, Paneer with Cashew nut gravy and cream, Potato with a coriander, curd, ginger, cumin and aniseed gravy, Vegetable pulao, Kachori chatni (chutney), Rabdi (for dessert) and Darjeeling tea from the family’s tea garden. 

I loved the way the thali meal gave me a selection of dishes that emphasised the legume and milk based nature of Rajasthani cuisine. It was my first time cooking with gram flour and I started to understand what makes Rajasthani cuisine special and the ingenuity behind so many of the dishes.

Lakshmi and her husband also helped us plan our explorations in the Ballygunge area. Ballygunge is such an interesting area with the Kalighat and Birla temples and Bengali restaurants like 6 Ballygunge Place and Bhojori Manna as well as the gorgeous Byloom handloom textiles shop with amazing colours!

It was another very special day and another highlight of our trip to Kolkata!

(To open the embedded Facebook posts fully for the recipes and details, just click on the date/time under Food and Travel Secrets.)