A Bangaal Recipe for Bottle Gourd Stir-fry
Srilagna Majumdar family recipes tell the story of resilience and nostalgia, of East Bengali recipes in West Bengal (read the other stories here and here), and of the East Bengali tradition of consuming every part of the vegetable.
As my mother and grandmother cook together in the kitchen, they share the story of unique vegetarian dishes that have come to our table through the legacy of retaining a sense of home for the Opaar Bangla. Over time, the immigrant Bangaals mastered the art of utilising every part of the vegetable — skin, stem, roots, leaves, and seeds. A few cumin seeds, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, or ground cardamom sprinkled on sizzling oil, could elicit the smell of a home long left behind.
Cobbled into poverty and a lack of nutritious food, refugees started inventing new dishes, modifying older ones using the minimal ingredients available. They relied mostly on foraging and government-provided ration, called dol. Today, these simple dishes, tinged with spice and consumed with rice, tell a story of resilience and nostalgia. These Bangaal dishes are still being modified, sometimes through the experiments of Ghoti mothers, and sometimes through accidents, lending a new dimension of flavour.
The bottle gourd peel stir fry is one of the easiest, yet tastiest inventions of the East Bengali refugees amidst the tumultuous days of 1947.
RECIPE FOR LAU-ER KHOSHA BHAJA
Ingredients
2 cups bottle gourd skin
4 red chillies
2 tbsp cumin seeds
2 tbsp sesame seeds
Method
Peel the skin of a fresh, not too ripe, bottle gourd. Make sure you don’t peel the skin too thin. Finely chop it.
Sprinkle some cumin seeds on hot oil and add the chopped gourd skin.
Sauté until they are brownish and add salt and sesame seeds.
Serve hot with steamed rice.
Originally from Kolkata, Srilagna Majumdar is a Hyderabad-based archivist, curator, and cultural history practitioner. She works in the fields of public history, community outreach and art. Follow her on Instagram or Facebook
Also read: The Gujaratis love for bottle gourd
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