Writers share their memories of favorite mithai to sweeten your festive season.
Imagine waking up early on Diwali. There stands before you a glass showcase explod- ing with melt-in-the-mouth Indian sweets — mithai such as barfi, laddoo, gulab jamun, and rasgulla. Orange, yellow, golden brown, or white in color, these delicacies are neatly arranged in platters like jewels, some foiled in silver leaves. Laced with cardamom, cinnamon, rose water, and exuding a rich, nutty aroma, they come in round, oval, or square shapes. They’re composed of a diverse set of ingredients such as milk, ghee, sugar, legumes, rice flour, and pistachios, with textures that can be creamy, crumbly, dense, chewy, or spongy. Your hand reaches out. Which indulgence should you pick? Which sweet piece would you love to taste right now?
NALINI IYER, a Seattle University professor of English based in Kirkland, Washington:
My favorite Diwali sweet is Mysore pak. Made with ghee, besan (chickpea flour), and sugar, Mysore pak is nutty, crumbly, sweet — and dissolves in your mouth. Some folks like Mysore pak oozing ghee and possessing a fudgy texture, but for me it’s the crumbly ones that represent Diwali. My mother made Mysore pak every Diwali. It is not an easy sweet to make, although it only requires minimal ingredients. But the secret to Mysore pak lies in the ingredients — fresh ground chickpea flour, pure ghee, and just the right amount of sugar. Every year I watched my mother make them, and she always gave me a running commentary on how to ensure the flour is sifted and without lumps, the freshness of the ghee, when to add the sugar, and most importantly, when to take it off the flame. Mysore pak requires constant stirring, and you must know exactly when to take the mix off the flame and pour it into a greased plate. The mixture must have the right amount of bubbles and not stick to the sides of the pan. Leave it for too long and the sweet will be hard; take it off too early and the sweet will not set with the right level of crumbling.
For years, I never dared to make Mysore pak — I didn’t trust that I had imbibed the technique from years of childhood observations. Last year, I made it for Diwali. As I mixed and stirred, I heard my mother’s voice telling me what to look for. Those childhood
commentaries had embedded themselves in my psyche. I took the mixture off the stove exactly when the bubbles reached the optimal number, poured it into a greased plate, and then cut it into squares. I took that tremulous, tentative first bite — it was perfect. I took a photo and sent it to my mother on WhatsApp. She approved and said it looked exactly right. My tastebuds told me she was right.
SANDIP ROY, an author, podcaster, and prolific columnist currently based in Kolkata:
Diwali and its sweets were not a huge part of my growing up in a Bengali home in Kolkata, though we got the hampers of colorful laddoos and barfis, covered in silver foil. For us, festive occasions meant malpuas — thin pancakes, crispy on the edges and soft in the middle, soaked in syrup or ledikenis, shaped like little brown bolsters and supposedly named after the British vicereine Lady Canning. I didn’t have an enormously sweet tooth, unlike most Bengalis, but my favorite dessert was always mishti doi or sweetened yogurt, popular primarily in Bengal. India is a country where yogurt is enjoyed in many forms — it’s turned into cooling lassis; it becomes part of curries and marinades; or it is whipped into a raita with chopped onions and cucumber. But none of that is sweetened yogurt, which I enjoyed as a dessert. It was especially delicious when set in a little clay pot, like its own personal pudding. It’s not just the sweetness that distinguishes it from the regular yogurt: it is the way it’s made. Allow it to thicken slowly and to ferment gently, while the porous clay walls of the cups suck out more moisture. Sometimes it’s reddish and more caramelized, sometimes it’s pure white. Some love the extra-thick layer on top. Now there are new variants like aam doi or mango mishti doi, but I love the old classic, especially the light white mishti doi from a hole-in-the-wall shop in North Kolkata. We served it at a wedding lunch for my niece’s wedding. Everyone asked where it was from. We refused to tell them. Some things are worth gatekeeping.
ANURADHA KUMAR, a novelist and nonfiction writer based in Montville, New Jersey:
It’s rust-brown in color, with uneven edges; it feels hard on first touch but turns to mouth-crumbling deliciousness on first bite. The thekua is a traditional sweet made in the eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand. It is a must during Chhath, a two day festival that follows Diwali by a few days and is dedicated to the sun god. When I first travelled to my husband’s house in Patna, an old city and the capital of Bihar, I watched my mother-in-law make it. She sat on the kitchen floor sifting the dough (wheat flour). She had a cup of melted ghee by her, to which she added a spoon of coconut ground to powder, some cardamom powder, and a bit of salt. When the dough felt like a smooth concoction, she mixed and kneaded it all together, her quick wiry hands moving into the dough, thumping it, and twisting it till it was soft and flaky. One could add fennel seeds too, she told me, but he — she shifted her head to indicate her husband — never likes that. Like my mother and women of that generation, they never took their husband’s name nor addressed him by first name, at least not in public. Then she added melted sugar; jaggery as well.
It all looked too simple, but when my first efforts came a cropper, I realized it depends on how expertly one kneaded the dough and got the ingredient mix just right. The oil (ghee, usually) to fry it had to be heated to just the right temperature. Before all this, though, my mother-in-law opened the drawer nearest to her and took out molds made of old mango wood. These were shaped like crescents, shells, circles, and diamonds. She pressed the mixture into the mounds, stamped them firmly into shape, and then dropped them into hot oil, frying them for several seconds till they turned that lovely rust brown color. Besides being delicious, the thekua lasts a long time . She packed it in containers that traveled everywhere to friends and relatives. It’s a lovely and sweet reminder of home in a faraway land.
NANDITA GODBOLE, a cookbook author, entrepreneur, and Khabar contributor based in Atlanta:
My childhood Diwali did not begin with visions of mithai or fireworks. It began with something unlikely: the arrival of Ishwar Kaka, an old family tailor. Ishwar Kaka proudly shared that he had sewn clothes for several generations of our family. He would come right after Navratri to tailor our Diwali clothes right in our living room. With him came the smell of his beedi, scraps of newspaper, fabric, and zari scattered all over the apartment. Over the hum of mom’s well-oiled Singer sewing machine and between his beedi puffs, having known my great-grandparents, he would share tales from his childhood in rural Rajasthan. Some were ghost stories from my great-grandparent’s jowar field, or about their misbehaving water buffaloes, and at other times were about Diwali at my great-grandmother’s little home. Diwali in rural Rajasthan in my great-grandparent’s family of farmers was a simple affair, marked with one dish — laapsi, a cracked wheat preparation doused in a thick layer of ghee. My great-grandmother would lovingly prepare it as prasad, or an offering, specifically for New Year’s Day, the day following Diwali. While his ghost stories grew taller each year, the lusciousness and sweetness in Ishwar Kaka’s recollection of my great-grandmother’s laapsi never wavered. His voice, heavy from a lifetime of smoking beedis, as he told us about laapsi, always marked Diwali preparations in our home.
When we leave our childhood home, we leave bits of ourselves behind. Celebrating Diwali in the U.S. without any family around me involved new challenges. It was impossible to recreate any of those Diwali memories from my childhood. Ishwar Kaka last sewed clothes for our infant daughter. She was the sixth generation in our family that he had dressed. Over the following years, I skipped making traditional confections that required skill, dexterity, and extra hands. In my childhood, cooking Diwali treats was always a family affair, when women gathered to cook together. In the U.S., I was alone with a child too young for the kitchen and a workaholic spouse trapped in the mindset that the kitchen was the woman’s domain, particularly during this time. Reminiscing brought melancholy more than joy to both of us.
Bharti Kirchner, the author of nine novels and four cookbooks, lives in the state of Washington. Her latest book is titled Murder at Jaipur: A Maya Mallick Mystery.