The Sweet Tooth

"THE SWEET TOOTH"
My earliest memory of delicious sweets is of a very dry, light yellow milk-khoya (mawa) mithai laced with kesar (saffron) strands and with granules of misri
embeded in it. Father would bring it from (then) Benaras on his way back from a tour of eastern India. During the
same period of childhood I discovered those yummy. soft moist sweets from,then famous, Chaudhary Sweet House of Lucknow My favourite was the tricolour barfi - a block of Green pishta- khoya, yellow saffron-khoya, and white
almond khoya all in one. It was, in a way, the celebration of nascent free
India! It had great aroma and taste. Whether it was real stuff, or just artificial colour and flavour, is quite
another matter !

L.M.B Rasmalai (Lakshmi Mistha Bhandar of Jaipur) was famous a couple of decades back and justifiably so. An evening in LMB and a visit to Raj Mandir Theatre was in every tourist's must-do list. But the most delicious rasmalai I ate was at a small restaurant in Chetak circle in Udaipur ! It had a unique taste and flavour. The informal ambience of the restaurant added to the enjoyment.

And then there was that sumptuous pure khoya mithai with a heavenly
flavour and taste - the Shingoree of Almora in the Himalayas. Wrapped into a conical shape, in a maloo-ka-patta (fresh tender leaf of Himalayan oak), it beat all other sweets when you were real hungry and wanted genuine health-food with substance.

Doctors have lately taken fun out of eating - both  for young and old - with constant focus on HDL LDL and triglycerates! And, then, you never know what you are eating. With genuine ingradients getting replaced by lipid-shockers, you get bogged down checking transfats and counting calories! And in the worst case you unwittingly get to eat a mix of urea, saccharin, inedible oil and distemper masqerading as Khoya !

Yes, the days of great Indian sweets seem to be over. For now atleast !

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