PITHE

In Bengali cuisine `PITHE’ plays an important role specially on the day of POUSH SANKRANTI(THE LAST DAY OF THE MONTH OF POUSH ,the ninth month of the Bengali calendar).This is such a time when there is food even in the house of the poor farmers .The store house is full with new rice .To mark this plentiful condition of the mother earth Bengal as a whole observe POUSH PARVAN ,a festival in which `Pithe ‘ ,sweet dishes are prepared with this new rice in almost every house in BENGAL. Among the special dishes famous preparations are-`payas’,`patisapta’,`pulipithe’,`gokulpithe’,`ranga alur(sweet potato) pithe’,`poa pithe’etc. All these dishes are mostly sweet in taste. The sweetness not simply comes from sugar .During this time `patali gur’ (jaggery made from the juice of date tree) adds special flavour to the pithes .All these mouth -watering dishes are made following very traditional methods so that the taste is always good. The process of making is passed from generation to generation .It may differ in taste from family to family but they are always good in taste simply varying in taste a little sometimes.