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Chitrita Banerji is a historian of Indian cuisine. She specialises in Bengali cuisine, and is also an author, novelist and translator. Her work explores the relationship between memory, history, culture, religion and food.
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Chitrita Banerji is a historian of Indian cuisine. She specialises in Bengali cuisine, and is also an author, novelist and translator. Her work explores the relationship between memory, history, culture, religion and food.
Banerji was born in 1947, and grew up in Calcutta (now Kolkata). She originates from West Bengal, but spent seven years living in Bangladesh (formerly East Bengal). At the age of 20 she went to Harvard University where she did her master's degree in English. [1] She has lived in the USA since 1990. She currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, traveling back to India regularly.[ citation needed ]
Banerji has written for a number of publications, including The New York Times , Gastronomica, Gourmet and Granta.[ citation needed ]
Banerji is the author of several books:
In 1998 and 1999 she received an "additional award" in the Sophie Coe awards for writings on food history. [2]
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India along the Bay of Bengal. With over 91 million inhabitants, it is the fourth-most populous state and the fourteenth-largest state by area in India. Covering an area of 88,752 km2 (34,267 sq mi), it is also the eighth-most populous country subdivision of the world. Part of the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, it borders Bangladesh in the east, and Nepal and Bhutan in the north. It also borders the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata, the third-largest metropolis, and seventh largest city by population in India. West Bengal includes the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region, the Ganges delta, the Rarh region and the coastal Sundarbans. The state's main ethnic group are the Bengalis, with the Bengali Hindus forming the demographic majority.
Bengali cuisine is the culinary style of Bengal, a region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent encompassing Bangladesh and Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley. The cuisine has been shaped by the region's diverse history and climate. It is known for its varied use of flavours, as well as the spread of its confectioneries and desserts. Bengali cuisine has the only traditionally developed multi-course custom in the South Asia that is analogous in structure to the modern service à la russe style of French cuisine, with food served in courses rather than all at once. There is a strong emphasis on rice as a staple, served with fish, meat, vegetables, and lentils. Many Bengali food traditions draw from social activities, such as adda, or the Mezban.
Mahasweta Devi was an Indian writer in Bengali and an activist. Her notable literary works include Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali, and Aranyer Adhikar. She was a leftist who worked for the rights and empowerment of the tribal people of West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states of India. She was honoured with various literary awards such as the Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award and Ramon Magsaysay Award along with India's civilian awards Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan.
Bengali Brahmos are those who adhere to Brahmoism, the philosophy of Brahmo Samaj which was founded by Raja Rammohan Roy. A recent publication describes the disproportionate influence of Brahmos on India's development post-19th Century as unparalleled in recent times.
Abanindranath Tagore was the principal artist and creator of the "Indian Society of Oriental Art". He was also the first major exponent of Swadeshi values in Indian art, thereby finding the influential Bengal school of art, which led to the development of modern Indian painting. He was also a noted writer, particularly for children. Popularly known as 'Aban Thakur', his books Rajkahini, Buro Angla, Nalak, and Khirer Putul were landmarks in Bengali language children's literature and art.
Ghoti, also called Poshchimbongiyo, are a social group native to the state of West Bengal, in India.
Tangra is a region in East Kolkata that traditionally housed many tanneries owned by people of Hakka Chinese origin.
Rasgulla, also known as Rosogolla,Rosgola, or Rasagola is a South Asian syrupy dessert popular in the Indian subcontinent and regions with South Asian diaspora. It is made from ball-shaped dumplings of chhena and semolina dough, cooked in light sugar syrup made of sugar. This is done until the syrup permeates the dumplings.
Utpal Dutta was an Indian actor, director, and writer-playwright. He was primarily an actor in Bengali theatre, where he became a pioneering figure in Modern Indian theatre, when he founded the "Little Theatre Group" in 1949. This group enacted many English, Shakespearean and Brecht plays, in a period now known as the "Epic theatre" period, before it immersed itself completely in highly political and radical theatre. His plays became an apt vehicle for the expression of his Marxist ideologies, visible in socio-political plays such as Kallol (1965), Manusher Adhikar, Louha Manob (1964), Tiner Toloar and Maha-Bidroha. He also acted in over 100 Bengali and Hindi films in a career spanning 40 years, and remains most known for his roles in films such as Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome (1969), Satyajit Ray’s Agantuk (1991), Gautam Ghose’s Padma Nadir Majhi (1993) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's breezy Hindi comedies such as Gol Maal (1979) and Rang Birangi (1983). He also did the role of a sculptor, Sir Digindra Narayan, in the episode Seemant Heera of Byomkesh Bakshi on Doordarshan in 1993, shortly before his death.
Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay was an Indian novelist who wrote in the Bengali language. He wrote 65 novels, 53-story-books, 12 plays, 4 essay-books, 4 autobiographies, 2 travel stories and composed several songs. He was awarded Rabindra Puraskar, Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith Award, Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan.
The culture of West Bengal is an Indian culture which has its roots in the Bengali literature, music, fine arts, drama and cinema. Different geographic regions of West Bengal have subtle as well as more pronounced variations between each other, with Darjeeling Himalayan hill region and Duars showing particularly different socio-cultural aspects.
Sandesh is a dessert, originating from the Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, created with milk and sugar. Some recipes of Sandesh call for the use of chhena or paneer instead of milk itself. Some people in the region of Dhaka call it pranahara which is a softer kind of sandesh, made with mawa and the essence of curd.
Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, also known as R D Banerji, was an Indian archaeologist and museum expert. He was the Manindra Chandra Nandy Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture at the Banaras Hindu University from 1928–30. He is best known as the discoverer of the antiquity of Mohenjo-daro, the principal site of the Indus Valley Civilisation through excavations.
Mohit Banerji (1912–1961) was a pioneer of the Communist Party of India in West Bengal, India and translated several Communist movement songs of Europe into Bengali. These include "Soviet Land" and "The Internationale". The Bengali translation of "The Internationale" is now the Party anthem in West Bengal.
Boti, Dao, Da, Chulesi, or Pirdai is a cutting instrument, most prevalent in the country Nepal, Bihar, Bengal region a region in eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, which is now divided between the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Tripura, and Barak Valley of Assam and the independent country of Bangladesh.
Nagendranath Basu was an archaeologist, encyclopaedist and a nationalist social historian of Bengal.
Sophie Dobzhansky Coe was an anthropologist, food historian, and author, primarily known for her work on the history of chocolate.
Paratha is a flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent, prevalent throughout the modern-day nations of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago where wheat is the traditional staple. Paratha is an amalgamation of the words parat and atta, which literally means layers of cooked dough. Alternative spellings and names include parantha, parauntha, prontha, parontay, paronthi (Punjabi), paratha, palata, porotha, forota, farata, roti canai, prata, paratha, buss-up shut, oil roti.
Chhanabora is a sweetmeat from the Indian subcontinent made from chhena and syrup. It is attested from the 16th century. It is related to rosogolla and pantua, sharing a cottage cheese basis with the former and a burnt brown crust with the latter. According to local legend, it was created when Maharaja Manindrachandra Nandi of Cossimbazar ordered his cook to create a dessert that was neither rosogolla nor panuta. It is common in Murshidabad and outsize chhanabora are a common gift for high-ranking visitors.
Rosinka Chaudhuri is the Professor of Cultural Studies and also current Director at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC). Previously she has been inaugural Mellon Professor of the Global South at Oxford University, 2017-18, and has held visiting positions at King's College London, London, Delhi University, Cambridge University and Columbia University.
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