Cook with Joy. Laugh with your Friends

Author: Bobby (Sanchoy) Das

I am a chef hobbyist and self-taught cook, I learned my skills by watching chefs cook in their kitchens, across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. I am a professor of Supply Chain Engineering and am naturally curious about where ingredients come from and the history of artisanal recipes and cooking methods.

I have been fortunate enough to eat at 5-Star curated restaurants, 0-Star hidden gem amazing restaurants, street kitchens that matched food to the mood, and the cozy and homely kitchens of friends and family. In these experiences, I found that if you went behind the plate and learned about the ingredients, the chef, and the recipe, then the dish became a story, and you enjoyed it even more.

The Cuisine of Bengal

The mighty Ganges River greatly influences the cuisine of Eastern India. The rich Gangetic delta provides a bounty of meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables that inspires chefs to create recipes for the rich, the poor, and the travelers who stop by.

The cuisine of Bengal combines a rural farm-to-table approach with sophisticated methods that emerged from the confluence of people and cultures that arrived in the great city of Kolkata. Like fine jewelry, many Bengali recipes have a provenance that represents the craftsmanship of the growers who provide the ingredients and a line of chefs who iteratively perfected the dish.

Today these recipes are evolving further to meet the flavor appetite of a modern society.

Photo: Mustard Fields – Nadia, West Bengal
Photo Credit: Abhijit Kar Gupta, commons.wikimedia.org