Eastern India
East India brings together the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha.
Due to the climate, Eastern India produces a lot of rice! Vegetables and fruits are also plentiful. Other popular ingredients are: mustard seeds and paste, peppers (green and red), as well as Panch Phoran which is a blend of five spices - white cumin seeds, onion seeds, mustard seeds , fennel seeds and fenugreek seeds. Mustard oil is used for frying and cooking.
No other region of India can match the East Indian love of sweets and desserts, often made with milk and dairy products. Some of the most popular and famous Indian desserts around the world come from here.
The next two menus will be inspired by the cuisines of West Bengal and Odisha.
A brief history of Kolkata
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From a small group of villages, Calcutta became the flourishing capital of British India and then in the 21st century a sprawling mega-city.
The city is said to have been founded over 300 years ago on the banks of the Hooghly River by Job Charnock, an administrator of the British East India Company. Charnock would have united the three villages of Sutanti, Gobindapur and Kalikata to form the city of "Calcutta". The trading port then became a major trading center for the British Raj.
In 1756, the Nawab (Grand Duke) of Bengal attacked and chased the British. The following year, Robert Clive defeated the Nawab and its French allies at the Battle of Palashi and reestablished British rule. Calcutta became the capital of British India from 1772. The city experienced rapid industrialization and its architecture developed to such an extent that it was known as the "city of palaces". It is a time of great British influence on the culture of Calcutta. At the start of the 20th century, however, as Bengal had become a hotbed of Indian nationalism, Lord Curzon attempted to divide the region on the pretext of religious reasons and in 1911 the decision was finally taken to refocus the capital of British India in Delhi.
Mahatma Gandhi launched in 1942 the movement "Quit India", which led in 1947 to the independence of India and the creation of Pakistan.
Calcutta becomes the capital of the state of West Bengal. Millions of Hindus from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh but formerly known as East Bengal), then arrive in the city, invading the slums.
In 2001, the city became Kolkata. It is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, facing extreme poverty, large slums, pollution and congestion. But it also remains one of the most important cities in India, with a rich artistic, literary and academic tradition.
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Did you know ?
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Kolkata is known as the "city of joy", the "city of palaces" and the "cultural capital of India".
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Established in 1862, the Calcutta Polo Club is the oldest polo club in the world.
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India's first newspaper, The Bengal Gazette, began life in Calcutta in 1780.
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A native of Calcutta, Rabindranath Tagore, the great philosopher, poet and writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He is the first non-European winner of the Nobel Prize.
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Other famous people were born in Kolkata: William Makepeace Thackeray - writer; Satyajit Ray - filmmaker; Vikram Seth - writer; Amartya Sen - Nobel Prize in economics in 1998. There are many others!
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The Order of Missionaries of Charity, an organization founded in 1948 by Mother Teresa (1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner), is also based in Kolkata
Colonial architecture of Kolkata
