Diwali is a vibrant, colorful and joyful festival that expresses itself with lights but also through food. During the days of celebration, food has a great importance because unlike other festivals, fasting is not foreseen. In particular, large quantities of sweets are produced because there is the custom of giving them as gifts and exchanging them with relatives and friends.
The first day is associated with wealth, and coarse cracked wheat sautéed with ghee and sugar known as Laapsi is very popular and may be accompanied by a curry of meter-long beans, which, because of their length, symbolize longevity.
On the second day, which is associated with the banishment of evil spirits, specialties include Anarasa, a rice and brown sugar dish that can take up to seven days to prepare. Light and fluffy urad lentil pakoras are eaten with kheer, a milky rice pudding.
The penultimate day of Diwali is New Year's Day. Puris can be associated with shrikhand, a cold pudding made from homemade yogurt; and mixed vegetable curry made from as many varieties of vegetables as possible, as this is auspicious for an abundance of food in the coming New Year.
The day after the New Year is a celebration of Bhai Dooj, bonding between brothers and sisters. Women spend the entire day in the kitchen, preparing their brothers', husbands' and fathers' favorite dishes and sweets, and receive lavish gifts in return.
Indian sweets, or 'mithai', are different from desserts found in other countries, as they are often very full-bodied and filling as a first or second course and can replace them. The ingredients are dried fruit, fruit or vegetables as a base, sugar and condensed milk and, of course, numerous spices. And almost always rose water.
They are served with numerous cups of masala chai tea and lassi, the typical Indian salty drink made from yogurt, water, salt and spices, usually cumin, which accentuates its thirst-quenching properties. Or in the sweet version: yogurt, water, sugar and fruit. The most common sweets are:
1. Boondi Laddu
Laddoos are balls made with chickpea or wheat flour, raisins and sugar, semolina and coconut, fried in ghee or oil and soaked in cardamom and saffron syrup. They are sweet, creamy and melt in your mouth.
2. Kaju Katli
There is no Diwali in India without Barfi. Kaju Katli is a sweet made of cashew nuts, sugar, cardamom powder and ghee, usually in a diamond shape and is a must-have during Diwali.
3. Gulab Jamun
Once you know the meaning of the name, it is easy to guess the flavor of the sweet: gulab means rose, while jamun indicates an oval-shaped fruit, dark in color similar to a grape. The basis of the recipe, mawa and flour, two simple ingredients that are kneaded together and then shaped into small spheres, to be fried in clarified butter or oil.
Finally, these sweet balls are immersed in a sugar syrup flavored with cardamom, rose or saffron, which colors the delights a beautiful bright yellow. These sweets are small, sticky, creamy and delicious balls, sometimes garnished with nuts.
4. Kheer
Kheer is a pudding prepared by boiling milk and sugar with rice, cracked wheat, tapioca, vermicelli or sweet corn. It has a creamy and sweet taste and is enriched with cardamom, raisins, saffron, cashew nuts, pistachios, almonds or other dry fruits and nuts.
Kheer in North India, payasam in the South: in any case, we are talking about a rice pudding popular throughout the country. The name comes from payas, milk, one of the main ingredients along with sugar and rice, while there is an ancient legend about the origin of the recipe.
One day, an old sage in the form of Krishna challenged the king of the city of Ambalapuzha to a game of chess. The king was fond of the game and promised the sage anything he wanted if he won. The king asked for simple rice, but on one condition: the king had to place a grain of rice on each square of the board, doubling the number of grains on the next.
The sage won the game and so the king began to place the rice, in ever-increasing numbers. Finally, Krishna revealed his identity and asked the king to offer rice pudding to all the pilgrims visiting the temple dedicated to him in the city.
5. Kalakand
Kalakand is a sweet with a soft, grainy texture and infused with cardamom and rose water. Punjab and Rajasthan compete for the paternity of this milk cake, a cube with a melting and moist consistency, halfway between a soft cake and a fudge. The procedure to prepare it is simple, all you need is a little patience.
In fact, you need to reduce the milk flavored with cardamom together with the sugar for hours, until it solidifies. Once ready, you can cover it with chopped pistachios or other dried fruit.
6. Karanji
Karanji, small pockets of puff pastry, crescent-shaped, stuffed with poppy seeds, grated coconut, sugar, nuts and cardamom. Very long to prepare, they are reserved for big celebrations like Diwali.
Gujiya, is a deliciously crispy and sweet fried dumpling. The outside is made of semolina or flour and is stuffed with a mixture of sweetened milk, dry fruits and spices, then fried until golden brown.
7. Halwa
Not to be confused with Middle Eastern halva, Indian halwa is a soft pudding usually made of semolina or carrots, prepared with a mix of ghee, water, sugar, spices and milk. A fundamental ingredient in Indian cuisine, ghee is an ingredient that recurs in many preparations, so it is worth spending a few words on its origins.
It is a clarified butter – heated so that the water and milk proteins separate – born because of the high temperatures of the country, which in the past did not allow for optimal conservation of classic butter.
The clarified one, on the other hand, lasted longer, so it entered by right in many recipes. It is also present in Indian mythology, according to which Prajapati, invented ghee simply by rubbing his hands, then throwing it into the flames and giving life to his offspring. It is for this reason that, even today, Indians pour ghee into the fire as a sign of good luck during weddings or other special occasions.
Halwa is typically made from grated carrot or pumpkin and cooked with ghee, sugar and condensed milk so that they become soft, sweet and thick. Often flavoured with cardamom and walnuts or almonds, it is a sweet that is often eaten during festivals.
There are two types of halwa, one flour-based that is slightly gelatinous and often shaped like a bar, and one nut-based that has a crumbly texture and is not pressed into a paste.
8. Peda
Among the pillars of Indian pastry are peda, soft and delicate sweets originating from Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, but spread almost everywhere. They are prepared with koha (or mawa, the dairy product made with thickened milk), sugar, dried fruit and cardamom, but there are many variations: the kesari peda, for example, scented with saffron, or the dharwad peda, darker in color and sprinkled with sugar.
In any case, they are always round in shape, soft and slightly flattened in the center. Peda are soft and delicate sweets, prepared with condensed milk, sugar, dry fruits and cardamom. They are always round in shape, soft and slightly flattened in the center.
9. Mysore Pak
Krishnaraja Wodeyar was the Maharaja of the city of Mysore in the 1930s, a gluttonous ruler with high expectations. He loved to organize original and extravagant banquets for the royal family.
One day, his chef Kaksura Madappa was short of ideas for dessert and, having to prepare something tasty in a short time, he combined the simplest ingredients he had on hand: ghee, gram flour and sugar, thickened to a sweet syrup, which he served on the plate.
By the end of the meal, however, the dessert had thickened and when the king ate it, it melted in his mouth. Ecstatic, he asked the cook the name of the recipe, which was renamed Mysore Paka, later shortened to Pak. This is the popular story handed down to this day about the birth of Mysore pak, a sweet served on all special occasions, often flavored with cardamom, rose or other essences.
10. Jalebi
Finally, you can't miss a taste of jalebi, one of the most popular sweets in India, made with maida flour (a typical fine-grained variety) and saffron: fried dough spirals covered in sweet syrup, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, often served with rabri, a thick cream made from milk, sugar, cardamom and dried fruit.
Other foods consumed during Diwali
It is not just sweets that are the stars of this festival. Diwali is characterised by the assortment of savoury snacks served at various times and places throughout the festival alone or with curries. They are made from chickpeas, rice, lentils and many other varieties of flour, and are topped with different combinations of spices, fresh fenugreek leaves or coconut, crushed into assorted shapes and usually fried.
Different special dishes are traditionally cooked on different days of the festival and these further vary by region. Generally puris, traditionally fried in expensive ghee and therefore rich in every sense, replace flatbreads; and are accompanied by a different dal, vegetable curry, fried morsels such as pakoras, collectively known as namkeen or farsan, and a pudding on each day of the festival.
Some specialities include:
11. Mawa Kachori
A typical fried and spicy street food, kachori also exists in a sweet version, and in this case it is called Mawa Kachori. A crunchy parcel filled with dried fruit and mawa, immersed in a sweet syrup. But what is mawa? Also called koha and shared with Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, mawa is a dairy product made from whole milk, cooked until it thickens.
A bit like cheese, but less creamy, produced with cow's milk or water buffalo milk, a breed typical of Southeast Asia.
12. Chirote
Mostly popular in the west Indian state of Maharashtra, chirote is a must-have sweet treat during celebrations. It is a light puff pastry shell, a series of concentric circles of delicate pastry, covered with cardamom syrup or flavoured powdered sugar. It is made with plain flour, or a mix of flour and semolina, and is fried in ghee.
13. Pakora
Bhaji in South India or Pakora in North India are prepared with various vegetables like onion, spinach and cabbage mixed with gram flour and a spice based dough and then fried.
14. Samosa
Samosa, small puff pastry parcels filled with vegetables such as potatoes and peas, as well as spices.
15. Murukku
Mullu Murukku, long rolled sticks made with rice flour and cumin seeds, chilli and fried.
16. Dahi Bhalla
Dahi Bhalla, very common as street food, are light fried dumplings, flavoured with green chillies and raisins. Usually served with yogurt and tamarind chutney.
17. Chivda
Chivda, also known as Bombay mix, combines, depending on the recipe, cashews, peanuts, walnuts and puffed rice or rice flakes or fried lentils, desiccated coconut and raisins. The mixture is fried, kept very crispy and seasoned with hot spices including chilli, curry and mustard seeds.
