The Cheesy Controversy!!

Hi Friends, I am back again with a topic that has created a bit of cat fights and internet wars very recently. This is the curious case of the Rasagolas-as it is called in Oriya. (the cheese delights specifically made in the eastern part of India and famous all over the world.

Recently there was an article that came up in The New Indian Express on the “The Origin of Rasagola’. An Oriya reporter had written an article that was wonderfully balanced giving credit to both the Oriya and the Bengali sides. And as controversial as it was people from both states jumped to the ring with their arguments. Some silly and some very factual!! We Indians are very patriotic to our land (own state) and we defend it to that last bit.

In my childhood days I was very fond of these cheese dumplings. There was a shop where my uncle would take me to for snacks every evening. I used to love the “Dali bara” and “ghuguni”. Both authentic and of typical Oriya origin. It is so authentic that people in Bhubaneswar would swear by the Lord if anybody else claims it’s proprietary. That shope used to make really awesome rasagolas. It is customary in Indian tradition to visit our relatives and greet them with sweets. In Odisha two sweets that is common on festivals is the Rasagola and the Chenna poda. Both chenna based sweets are made and relished with equal delight in any oriya household. Many wars have been fought for the food and many for proprietary. This is also no different.

The Oriya Perspective:

Rasagolas were originated some 700 years ago in the temple of Puri. It was called Khiramohan. Lord Jagannath use to offer Goddess Laxmi to pacify her during Niladri Vijay. I was fortunate to have seen this ritual this time during my visit to Puri. The grandeur of the Rath Yatra festival is second to none. Odia people are very religious and god fearing and Lord Jagannath is their supreme deity. The temple kitchen of Puri has a legacy of nearly 1000 years and it is believed that the recipe used has not change over a 1000 years. It is said that no crop that is foreign to the land of Odisha is allowed inside the temple kitchen. The Rasagolas went out of Puri via the temple cooks(Brahmins) and were famous all of Odisha. One Bikalananda Kar from Salepur near Cuttack is believed to be the architect of the modern oriya Rasagola. He gave it a different twist and made it brownish by adding bit of illaichi and jaggery to the syrup. Soon it became famous as Bikali Kar Rasagola or Nana Rasagola. I have had the chance to go through salepur often and gorge of this relic many times.

There is another hamlet in the outskirts of Bhubaneswar called Pahala. Pahala is famous for its rasgullas, chena poda and chena gaja. It is estimated that nearly 65lac rasagolas are sold every day which makes it the biggest sweet market in the world. Like wise there are many shops like Dama maharaj, Cuttack Sweet Stall, Jalaram who are famous for rasagolas in and around Bhubaneswar and Cuttack twin city.

The Bengal Perspective:

It is believed that some unknown Haridhan Moira may have introduced it to Bengal. But Nobin Chandra Das claims to be the architect of the ‘sponge Rasagola’. He is said to be the Columbus of Rasagola. It is not as soft but of a bit spongy variety as more of semolina is used to make it. Rasagolas have a very small self life so Nobin Das's KC Das started canning it and commercializing all over bengal and outside. It was then known to be a Bengali sweet and now it has entered into the hall of fame of all sweet lovers.

Why Controversial?:

As per the Oriya claim Rasagola is an uncompromised tradition of Puri temple which has been intact for 700 years. Due to summer milk was difficult to be stored for days so people started making products by acidic curdling. Chenna is made of whey through acidic milk curdling unlike the enzyme base curdling in the west. Even the Buddhist and Jainas who were dominant religions in Odisha before the Jagannatha cult used to have chenna based items for their daily meals. On the contrary the Bengalis credit the Portuguese to have brought cheese to India when they settled in Hooghly in the late of 16^th century. It was some KT Achaya who wrote in his book “Indian Food – A Historical Companion” that the Portuguese had bought cheese to Bengal. But the cheese the Portuguese made was salty and smoky made from rennet. It is called Bandal cheese and is not used in Rasagola. Another cookbook writer Chitrita Banerjee writes that Portuguese gave what is called Chenna or Chhana( in Bengali) to Bengal and then it moved to all parts of India. But didn’t the Portuguese land before in Goa? It seemed like a cooked up story because the Portuguese and the Dutch used to curdle milk by rennet which is found in the stomach of the animals. India had a long cow rearing history and milk curdling has been a part of it’s tradition for centuries since the early human settlers in this land. India has a very strong cow-rearing culture, and a hot climate where discarding curdled milk is an obvious economic loss. By the tenets of scientific reductionism, there can be no India-wide taboo against curdling of milk. The curdling of cheese could never have been a taboo throughout India, as in a cow-rearing culture where milk will always get curdled in warm weather, wasting cheese has huge economic ramifications. A nation-wide taboo against curdling is a near mathematical impossibility. 

• The Portuguese influence on goanese cuisine is clear-cut – feni, bibenca, vindaloo (vinho de alho), etc. Why, most dishes have Portuguese sounding names. They also heavily influenced all aspects of goa’s culture, architecture and religion. Contrast this with Bengal.
• “Chhana” isn’t remotely Portuguese sounding. It is the hindi-cum-oriya word “chhena” which is more popularly known all over India.
• The portuguese came to india at the same time as bengal. So why do you claim that the bengalis got this idea, but not oriyas?

It was Dr. JB Padhi who first examined the centuries old records of the puri temple about the origin of the rasgulla. he estimates that the recipe for rasgulla is 6-7 centuries old!

Another scholar, a certain S. C. Mohapatra also has made similar discoveries to corroborate J. B. Padhi’s research.

The nature of the baseless 'claim' makes me worried and I wonder, would automatically render all Indian cheeses Bengali. That includes, as someone mentioned, a purely north Indian chenna sweet, as well as typical Oriya chenna dishes such as rassabali (that has been prepared in the Baldev Jeu mandir (Kendrapara for centuries). The question that you must be answering is why don't Oriyas care if the chamcham, malai chop or sondesh are called Bengali. Why does every Oriya person and every Oriya cook book, mention rasgulla to be Oriya, if it had been invented so recently? What is the origin of these claims? Why do Oriyas go ballistic only at the mention of K. C. Das but not anything else? The disrespectful and offensive nature of the way you trivialize the age old traditions of other cultures, smacks off intense chauvinism, cultural insensitivity, narrow mindedness and bigotry

Further, you consistently ignore two things - that there is a gap of several centuries between the Portuguese arrival and the origins of rasagola, and that the Portuguese came to Orissa also.

Other than KT Achaya’s tall claim about milk-curdling, why isn’t there any tangible Portuguese influence in Bengal? It was a mere conjecture. And moreover the Portuguese might have only done a favor to Bengal by teaching the locals, milk curdling as they were under the influence of Afghan rule for centuries. Puri temple has a long history of milk curdling. The Portuguese only introduced another variety of smoked cheese which is know as Bandal cheese which is curdled from rennet which is obtained from animal stomachs. Not all cheeses require rennet, and not all cheese-making cultures use rennet. But Portuguese cheese does and chhana does not. As far as I know, the only Indian cheese that uses rennet is Surati cheese and that is the only cheese of foreign origin.

By the tenets of scientific reductionism, there can be no India-wide taboo against curdling of cheese. Taboos of this nature (if any) will be strictly local – only in kolkata.

Recently in the race to the GI for Rasagola Odisha government has found evidence that it has mention in Dandi Ramayan of Balaram Das(15th Century Author/Poet). Balaram Das clearly mentions that Rasagola is one of the delicacies offered to the Lord. Balaram Das is a contemporary of Sri Chaitanya. 

It clearly mentions that " there are many prasads offered to the Lord, among them are Nadi Saraphuli, Arisa, Chenna Puri, Kakara, Ladu, Malpua, Gaja, Panasa,Kora, Rasagola, Rasabali, Manda Pitha and Banana".

While you make a pit stop at the end of this post I am gonna relish my rasagola at Salepur.

Hope the post made sense to some extent. Happy reading and don’t forget to comment.

Cheers!