Starting tomorrow, I will be sharing tit bits about Bengal’s Food History. If you would like to know more about it https://www.instagram.com/isudatta/ 

Here is Part 1 of Bengal's Food History. You can see the post on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/p/CJh80Twp5OR/ 

For years altogether, the Bengali cuisine and its food have been synonymous with fish and rice. Bengalis are the third largest ethnic group in the world after the Han Chinese and Arabs, a fact which will startle a lot of Bengalis.

When people talk about Bengal, they usually mention the British colonial rule, the Howrah Bridge, the Durga Puja, Rabindranath Tagore and many such stereotyped notions. However, there is more to Bengal.

Bengal was a vast region. In the Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier book, Bengal in Prehistory has been described as such — “Physically, the Bengal delta is a flat, low-lying floodplain in the shape of a great horseshoe, its open part facing the Bay of Bengal to the south...

...Surrounding its rim to the west, north, and east are disconnected hill systems, out of which flow some of the largest rivers in southern Asia — the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna...

...Wending their way slowly over the delta’s flat midsection, these rivers and their tributaries deposit immense loads of sand and soil, which over millennia have gradually built up the delta’s land area, pushing its southern edge ever deeper into the bay...

...In historical times, the rivers have been natural arteries of communication and transportation, and they have defined Bengal’s physical and ancient cultural subregions — Varendra, the Bhagirathi-Hooghly basin, Vanga, Samatata, and Harikela.”

Because of such abundance of rivers flowing through the region, the people living around the delta never had to look elsewhere or travel in search of food. Moreover, the region enjoyed four seasons.

Although there isn’t enough documentation of the food and cuisine of the region prior to the 12th century, and much before the conquest of the land by foreigners, whatever materials are available, the Bengal delta food was vastly a vegetarian one.

One has to look at history, dating back to the early Indo-Aryan times, to understand the influence of culture and religion on Bengal and its food culture.

Part 2 coming tomorrow