A Love Letter to the Best Thing Ever
Photo: KAZI AKIB BIN ASAD
My eyes first register the display of my phone as I turn off the alarm, and then immediately roll back inwards as my mind goes to its happy place: THOUGHTS OF FOOD.
The cerebral folds in my brain fight off the sleep gradually as images of warm flaky paratha, savoury beef nihari, and fried egg, flood every corner of my mind. My nose gets imaginative with the smell of fresh ghee and spices, and my tongue salivates on cue.
Of course, the idea of breakfast isn t just about taste, smell, sight, touch, and sound, it s also about the contents. The food itself is of paramount importance in the celebration, with the rest being necessary additions. The first time I heard
Chrismas to a Kolkata resident is a time for fruitcake, lights and live bands on Park Street, and the Christmas Eve mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral, say Insiya Poonawala and Saptarshi Chakraborty, founders of Indian food blog Bong Eats. While we might not be able to get the full experience, this Kolkata Christmas fruitcake, they guarantee, tastes equally festive and delicious. Founders of Bong Eats, a popular Indian food blog Image Credit: Supplied First, we’ve added spices to both the dried fruit mixture as well as to the cake batter. But the most significant addition we’ve made is adding thick, syrupy ‘burnt sugar’. It is an old-fashioned Anglo-Indian technique, widely popular in Caribbean cooking too, to add a deep flavour, mild bitterness, and colour to cakes and meats, the blogger couple explain.