DIWALI - THE FESTIVAL OF FOOD...

Festival of lights or Festival of food…

Come Diwali I can smell all kinds of smells wafting from the kitchen my mom is slaving over a hot stove making chakri, sev, sakar para, poori ghoogra and magas.

People consider Diwali as the festival of lights, I SAY IT’S A FESTIVAL OF FOOD. Endless variety of food and snacks are made in each and every household and eating good and hearty is the flavor of the season. Let me describe some traditions in my family.

Our family dinners and get together start from Dhanteras and continue on, during the course of a few days we have either taken a culinary trip around India or atleast around Gujarat for sure. My mom’s side of the family hail from Surat, South Gujarat region and are proud of being from there. The cuisine from Surat is different from the other parts of Gujarat, here they use a lot of fresh green ingredients like green chillies called Lavingia marcha and they put a fire in your mouth as well as your behinds, green onions which are in season during the winter months, scallions (Leelu Lasan) and coriander for flavoring  These are used as primary flavors and no other additives are added. Some vegetables like Ratalu (Yam) and Tuver (Pegeon peas) are typically surti and added in many many dishes. 2-3 surti dishes are my favorites ratalu and tuver nu shak, Surti undhiyu are my favorites. Tuver ne kachori is the most popular item in savories all around Gujarat.

During these dinners everyone tries their hand at outdoing each other in laying spreads of fantastic food on the dinner table, for the people with weight gain issues and weight watchers these dinners are cruel punishment but they take it with a glass of water as the spread when layed out is irresistible and too tempting to resist. The general layout of the spread is 1 salad, 2 savory dishes, 2 vegetable dish, 1 or 2 sweet dishes, daal or kadhi and rice, the usual accompaniments like poori paratha and papad are there as always.

During Diwali a tradition of eating Mathiya is very popular here in Gujarat, its sweet, salty and spicy all at the same time and hits your senses with a bang, I personally like it very much. Also chaulafali and kadhi with it.

Come Dhantaras the local icecream vendors like Havmor and Vadilal come out with schemes of free food storage containers and pair icecreams that are lease popular in the entire year and people throng to their parlors to buy these icecreams not because of the icecream but the free containers being offered with it. some traditions only the people who follow them can understand, my mom being one she every Dhanteras gets these containers and once asked why she simply said just cause I had to.

Having a multi cultural group is also an advantage, you get to taste food from various traditions and also find out about their traditions during the festival. I have been living next to Maharastrian neighbors for the past 15 years and their coconut and dryfruit ghoogras are to die for.  Sweets are the most popular items to give around Diwali. Kaju barfi and katli are the most popular sweets to give and receive.

There are hundreds of traditions followed during Diwali, the above was a mention of some of my favorite food moments in Diwali the FESTIVAL OF FOOD.