2018-05-12 Sat

A sweet that can make you swoon with delight, the creamy texture that melts on your tongue has a long history of traditions and flavours. It's a sweet dish meant to spread love and happiness, it's a messenger and gift of affection. Yes, the guess is right, it is the famous mouth-watering sweet dish of West Bengal, Sandesh.

Sandesh has been called the Emblem of Bengaliness according to food historian Taylor Sen. It is a power packed the punch of taste and reflects the rise of the Bengali renaissance with the European influence. It all started when Bengal was the centre point or hub for trade on the India shores to the European travellers and traders.

Traditional Sandesh is made for Chenna, an extract from curdled milk. Curdled milk was a taboo in India Cuisine, it was inauspicious to cook it, but of course, Sandesh made an exception. This change was due to the Portuguese settlers in Bengal, who defiantly loved their cotton cheese.

The Bengali sweets meet its golden age during the 19th century due to the growing and wealthy urban middle-class Kolkata. Some of the most influential sweet shops opened during that time. Today all most every shop in Kolkata sells 100 to 150 varieties of Sandesh. It is on the leading and famous sweets in Indian cuisine.

To celebrate some of the traditional cuisines of India, India Post issued a commemorative stamp in 2017. This stamp is the part of the Bhog Prasad miniature sheet.

To know more about India cuisine click here.

Image Courtesy: Google Image