When sweet-tooth rules: The Bangladeshi obsession with sweets

We, the Bangladeshis, have insatiable cravings for sweet food. Name a good thing in life, small and big; we need something sweet to celebrate the occasion. To share our happiness, we rush to the sweet shops; an essential part of good news comes with roshgollas, kachagollas, and more. 

While most of us living abroad learn to do without the familiar foods, sometimes the craving for sweets is overwhelming. "Oh, the Bikrampur Mishtanno Bhandar's malai-chop, I want a bite!" I lament to my daughter.

Living in the USA for many years, I still miss the trips to the sweetshops lined up along the streets of Dhaka to pick my favourites. Besides the store-bought sweetmeat, we love homemade jaggery or white sugar rice pudding. Unlike American rice pudding which is made with eggs, we use milk and sweetening ingredients. The rice cakes or the pithas are made with date molasses and are ceremonial for harvesting seasons in many Bangladeshi villages. Here in the USA, the Bangladeshi communities keep the traditions of the annual 'Pitha Utshab'.

As sweet-toothed people, introducing sweets to our taste buds comes early in life. When babies are born, we traditionally rush to shops to buy sweetmeat and distribute it to friends and families.

My grandmother taught me, "A baby is fed honey before placing the newborn in the mother's arm for breastfeeding. The sweetness of the honey is good for immunity." Superstitious families are likely to buy more sweets when it's a boy and proudly spread the news. 

The concept of a male child being the torchbearer of the family stands firm for families in many societies. A girl child is also welcome, but like the unwritten codes of power of the British throne, a male child rules the seat of pride in a family.

With time, the preferences between male and female children have changed, and some families will make sweet distributions weighed equally. Societies evolve, and we continue to enjoy our sweet tooth with every chance we get.

Most of us enjoy entertaining and meeting new cultures and new people. So, for the Bangladeshi diaspora in the USA, the weekends and other holidays usually include friends and family, food, and fun. When an immigrant's son or daughter graduates, gets engaged or married, and the news is shared on Facebook, the comments would follow, "Mishti Koi? (Where is sweet?)" Or, it could be "Mishti mukh korben na? (Won't you feed us sweets?)" The wording for sweets could be similar to saying, "When do we celebrate?"

Sweet food like cakes, puddings, or cupcakes would also do, but the highlights would come from the famous sweets that make us nostalgic and miss the land we left behind. 

Among the immigrant families, there is a special prize for cooks who master making traditional sweets at Bangladeshi homes. Women go the extra mile to learn how to make the perfect sponge roshogollas or the chomchom and carve a name for themselves.

In Bangladeshi gatherings, one could hear cheerful voices, "Oh, those roshgollas that Chanda makes are like Tangail sweets in Bangladesh. When I eat them, I feel at home."

The special chomchom from Tangail is rooted in history. The saying goes that when one eats those sweets, one can find the sugar deep inside the taste buds even after twenty years. 

Regarding distributing sweets, for some people, quality matters more than quantity; what shop is the sweets from? Is it the famous one? If the name rings a bell, the sharing holds more respect.

For the weight of sweetmeats, if a groom's family brings sweets in small amounts when visiting the home of the bride-to-be, the other party will likely find reasons to label the groom's side as misers.

There is no need to panic; traditions are traditions, they can be as steady as a rock, and life would flow around them. For Bangladeshis traveling to the USA, requests for particular sweets from home are inevitable. Thanks to the sweetshops inside the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, travelers can have sweets packed and ready for their loved ones.  

But wait, there is a catch in sweetmeats. The sweet called roshgolla is round and, at times, the round shape is compared to the number zero. On the other hand, when describing a person's sweet personality, the way to say it in Bengali is "meyeta chinir moto mishti," or "The girl is sweet like sugar." Finally,  speaking of good behavior, we would say, "Their personality is like honey."

Sweetness is all the way rooted within the subconscious of the Bangalis of Bangladesh. 

Tulip Chowdhury writes from Georgia, USA.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.