My Science School

Sundal

This is a savoury dish which can be made out of chickpea, kidney beans or moong dal. This spicy and healthy dish is usually prepared by Indian households during the festival of Dussera or Navratri. However, since it is a healthy snack, one can make it at any time.

Payasam/Kheer

This is a standard and easy-to-make sweet you can find at almost every household on special occasions. This sweet is made with milk rice, semolina, lotus seeds or lentils.

Almost every full meal in south India begins and ends with a payasam.

Biryani

This dish needs no introduction. A mix of flavours and masala mixed with rice and vegetables or meat, biryani activates your taste buds and leaves you wanting for more. Biryani is famous all over India, especially during Ramazan. People crave for ‘iftar biryani’ made with meat of different kinds, often thronging their friend’s place to devour it. Today, there are even vegetarian versions of the same.

Ladoo

This sweet needs no introduction. Ladoo is a favourite with children and adults alike. This can be made with besan/gramflour or semolina. Almost every sweet shop in India has ladoos. It is also made in several households, especially during festivals such as Diwali and Ganesh Chaturthi.

Gulab Jamun

Like ladoo, this sweet also needs no introduction. Thanks to the availability of several instant mixes, gulab jamuns can be made by anyone. However, there are many households that make this sweet from scratch using khoya. This deep-fried sweet dunked in sugar syrup is an irresistible delight.

Plum Cake

There is no Christmas without plum cake. Every year many of us wait eagerly for Christmas to indulge in this sweet delight. They are available at almost all bakeries, but there’s nothing like home-made plum cake to ring in the festivities.

Haleem

Haleem is available almost always, but is most popular during the holy month of Ramzan. Several stores across cities offer haleem, a stew made out of wheat or bareley and meat.

People also make vegetarian versions of Haleem.

Sadhya

Sadhya means ‘banquet’ in Malayalam. Originating in Kerala, sadhya is popular all over India. It is prepared mainly during Onam and other important festivals. Typically vegetarian, a sadhya is served on a banana leaf and contains nearly 24 to 28 dishes.

Gujia/Karanji

Sometimes called chandrakala because of its crescent moon shape, this sweet is made during Holi in the northern parts of India. It is made with maida (refined flour) or suji (semolina), stuffed with khoya, and then deep fried.

Kozhukattai/Steamed Dumpling

Known in the south as Kozhukattai and in the north as Modak, this is a steamed sweet made of rice flour, grated coconut and jaggery. Modaks are sometimes deep-fried as well. This sweet is considered the favourite of Ganesha and is hence made specially during Ganesh Chaturthi.

 

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Was the French toast invented in France? O one is sure. One story is that, during medieval times, state bread was reused by dipping it in batter and toasting it. But we do not know if the French cooks were the first to dip and fry bread. A similar dish, suppe borate, was popular in England during the middle Ages. There is also the story of Joseph French, an innkeeper in Albany. New York. In 1724, he advertised the fried toast as “French Toast.” Grammatically, he should have said, “French Toast.” But he had not learnt to use apostrophes. The dish is called pain perdu in French, meaning “lost bread” because it is recycled or “lost” bread. What is really “lost” is the origin of this popular breakfast dish.

 

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Did you know that the popular circle-shaped food item that can be sweet or savory was once spelt “pye”? This is a highly respected backed dish, whose history can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome. Today, the pastry-based pie is generally sweet, but it was once mostly made with a salty taste. There was a reason for this. This crisp crust of the pie, when baked, helped to preserve the meat the pie was filled with.

Have you tasted the apple pie?

Americans claim it is their “own” dish. “There are few things as American as apple pie.” They say. A, but the original apple pie recipes came from England. The original pies were made with unsweetened apples and were put in a cover that had to be thrown away. Yet the apple pie became popular. The first reference to this baked desert appeared in 1589, in the poem Menaphon by poet E. Greece: “They breath is like the steeme of apple pies."

 

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Now that the waffle-maker is available in stores, you can make crisp and “hole-y” waffles at home! This breakfast food item made with a beautiful pattern has an interesting back story. Ancient Greeks used a tool that resembled today’s waffle iron to make cakes, and the earliest European settles in Greece brought this to the New Americas. Waffles also arrived in the U.S. with the Pilgrims (check out who they are). These famous travelers had tasted this breakfast filler in Holland en route to Massachusetts. Thomas Jefferson, the former U.S. President reportedly brought a waffle iron home from France around 1789. Well, he served waffles to his guests and sparked a fad for waffle parties in the U.S. In the 1930s, a California family smartly combined instant waffle mix and electricity (for the waffle iron) to mass-produce waffles.

 

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In the mid-19th century, the Dutch were making ‘olykoeks” or oily cakes, balls of cake fried in park fat. These were sweet snacks. The cooks had a problem because the centre of the cakes would not get cooked completely. So they would stuff the centre with fruits or buts, which required no cooking. Another story refers to what Elizabeth Gregory, a New England ship captain’s mother did. She would prepare the dough and pack it for the boat crew going on long voyages. She stuffed the dough with hazelnuts or walnuts and referred to the treats as doughnuts. Her son, Captain Hanson Gregory said he invented the familiar ring shape in 1847, while abroad his ship. The middle of the doughnut was raw, so he punched a hole through the centre with the ship’s tin pepper box. The hole increased the doughnuts’ exposure to the hot oil and ensured that the doughnut was cooked throughout. “I produced the doughnut hole!” claimed Gregory. Another sailor’s story?

 

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The word “Pizza” was recorded in English in the early 1800s. English lexicographer John Florio described the pizza as “a small cake or wafer” in his 1598 Italian-English dictionary. The word “pizza” comes from Italian. Some think the Greek pitta (pita, or “bran bread”) is the source of the word. Others say it is from the Langubardic (an ancient German language in northern Italy) bizzo, meaning “bite”.

The modern pizza-an open-faced pie filled with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese-was first made by baker Raffaele Esposito in Naples. In 1889, he made a patriotic pie topped with mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes, ingredients in the colours of the Italian flag, in honour of king Umberto and Queen Margherita’s visit. It is said the Queen enjoyed the pie, and the dish has since been known as Margherita. In the U.S., Italian immigrants sold pizza in their stores, and the first pizzeria was opened in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi on Spring Street in New York City. During World War II. American and European soldiers stationed in Italy tasted pizza and continued to eat it when they returned home.

 

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Back in time

At some point, O felt the samosa was following me whenever I want. So, I decided to follow it back in time to discover how and when this unique (and yet common) snack was first made. Records dating back to the 14th Century mention Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta enjoying the hospitality of Mohammed bin Tughlaq. Battuta writes about ‘sambusaks’, which were flour casings packed with minced meat and dry fruits. They were the accompaniment to the pulao. So popular was the sambusak that even Amir Khusro, the Sufi poet, felt compelled to comment on the partiability bestowed on this snack by the elite.

A 15th Century text, “Nimatnama” contains recipes for almost all the dishes served in the court of Sultan Ghilyas al din Khilji. The manuscript mentions eight distinct recipes for making samosas-and none of them contained potatoes, which went on to became synonymous with the samosa. Rightly so, too, because the Portuguese brought potatoes to India only in the early 17th Century.

It’s not Indian

These early records might tempt us to think that the samosa is Indian in origin. But that isn’t true. Arab texts dating back to the 10th Century mention ‘sambusak’, a name derived from the Persian ‘sanbosag’. Travelling merchants who undertook long journeys and huddled around campfires would pack a few of the as sustenance. Two versions were made-backed and fried. The settled communities would bake this snack while the nomadic ones would fry it so it would stay unspoiled for many days. These travelling merchants brought the samosa to India, where it cut across rigid social structures and came to be loved by princes and paupers alike.

The many versions

Samosas are available in all corners of India. The north Indian version is large and stuffed with peas, onions and mashed potatoes. Luqmi, Hyderabad’s take on the samosa, is filled with meat and is flakier than other versions. Karnataka loves its onion and kheema varieties while Delhi offers the traditional potato samosa as well as those filled with moong dal, khoya and meat. Gujarat relishes the patti samosa that makes even cabbage taste delicious! Samosas in other south Indian States can have a variety of fillings, including mashed potatoes mixed in with carrots, curry leaves, cabbage, green chillies and so on. Goan samosas, called chamucas, are mostly meat-filled.

The singada, popular in West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, is smaller than its north Indian cousin. You would be forgiven for thinking that singadas are samosas called by another name. After all, the shape and the stuffing seem similar. However, the singada is smaller and stuffed with a mixture of cut potatoes (cooked rather than boiled), cauliflower and peas. Occasionally, it can contain peanuts. The stuffing is less spicier than the samosa and the casing is made of all-purpose flour rather than wheat flour. The non-vegetarian singada contains mutton while the sweet version is stuffed with reduced, sweetened milk. The dough is sealed with a clove before being deep friend. The snack is poetically named labongo lotika.

Who would’ve thought that a triangular piece of golden brown pastry had so much history, geography, culture and cuisine embedded in it?

 

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Origin

Though macaron is one of the most popular French confections, its root can be traced back to Italy. According to some food historians, macaron was brought to France by Catherine di Medici, and Italian noblewoman and the queen of France in the mid-1500s. These Italian macarons were simple cookies made of sugar, almond flour and egg white. It was popularly known as maccherone, Italian for fine dough. Almond macarons were a popular item served to the French King Louis XIV at the Palace of Versalilles. The first written recipe of the macaron appeared in France in the 17th Century. The popularity of the cookies has spread in the region since. However, macarons were eaten only by the elite until the early 1700s.

During the French Revolution, two Carmelite nuns in Nancy, a town in north-eastern France, sold macarons to common people to make some money to support themselves. They came to be known as “Macaron Sisters”. The macarons sold by the nuns were different from the ones prepared today, as they did not have any filling.

Macaron rose to International fame in the 1830s, when Parisian confectioner La Maison Laduree introduced ‘Macaron Parisien’. Laduree and his cousin were among the first to sandwich buttercream, jam and compote (syrups made with fruits) between two macaron cookies. Since then, macarons have been a huge hit not just among the French, but across the world.

Macaron or Macaroon?

Macarons and macaroons are often used interchangeably. However, these are two very different confections. Macarons are made with whipped egg white, almond flour and sugar, whereas macaroons are made with coconut, eggs and sugar. Macarons are light and have a filling, but macaroons are dense and are covered in coconut shavings, with no filling. The history and evolution of the two also vary.

Fun Flavours

From classic French to smoked salmon macarons, there are a wide range of flavours available today. The most popular flavours include pistachio, vanilla, caramel, chocolate, espresso and raspberry.

A few quickly flavours are cheeseburger, green Thai curry, ketchup, wasabi, cheetos, honey lavender, cheesecake, eggnog, creme brulee, and mustard and cauliflower.

Our Own Variant

The Thoothukudi macaroon made in Tamil Nadu is an Indian adaptation of the European macaron. This confection is a reinvented variant made with cashew and shaped into a cone. There is also a Mangaluru version, inspired by the Thoothukudi macaroon.

 

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Filled with just jam or layered with spicy meat, cheese and vegetables, sandwiches are one of the most popular quick-meal options today.

What exactly is a sandwich?

A sandwich is any food that consists of two slices of bread with a filling in between. This dish is generally eaten as a light meal. However, the definition changes from one place to another. For instance, burritos and hot dogs are also considered sandwiches in New York, but Massachusetts, a nearby State in the U.S., does not accept burritos as sandwiches.

Origin

The first sandwich was made in England in the mid-1700s for John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. Most food historians believe that Montagu, who was addicted to gambling, spent several hours at the card table and did not even take breaks for meals. During one of his long games, he reportedly asked his cook to prepare something he could eat without getting up from his seat. The cook is said to have prepared a dish with meat stuffed between two slices of bread, and the sandwich was born. Some food historians believe that the cook might have drawn inspiration from the West Asian Mezze platter (a snack tray with a selection of appetizers). Documents such as diary entries from this period suggest that the noble men of the kingdom began consuming sandwiches after it was popularized by Montagu. Other gamblers and busy people eating sandwiches, and by the end of 1760s, it became common. It was noted that by 1789, King George III and his family always took a supply of sandwiches on outings. Though America is currently one of the highest consumers of sandwiches, the dish was not popular in the region until the 1820s. Some believe the Americans intentionally avoided culinary trends from their former colonizer. However, as time passed by, sandwiches were adapted to suit local preferences and were included in American cookbooks and restaurant menus.

One of the most iconic events in the history of sandwiches is the invention of the bread-slicing machine by American inventor Otto Rohwedder in the 1920s. This machine made it possible to get uniform, thin and neat slices of bread that can be packed and sold. By the end of the 20th Century, sandwiches became a global hit, with each region having its own variant.

Across the world

As mentioned above, most countries have their own iconic sandwiches. Here are a few famous ones:

Vietnamese Banh Mi

This consists of a baguette (French bread) split lengthwise and filled with various savoury ingredients and flavoured with cilantro, jalapenos and mayonnaise.

Bombay sandwich

This sandwich consists of cucumber, carrot, lettuce, mayonnaise, processed cheese, boiled potato and a generous layer of cilantro chutney.

Portuguese Francesinha

This rich sandwich is made of ham, sausage and steak layered between sliced bread. The sandwich is topped with melted cheese and a tangy red sauce.

The largest sandwich

The largest sandwich was prepared by Wild Woody’s Chill and Grill, Roseville, Michigan, the U.S. on March 17, 2005. The sandwich weighed about 2,467.5 kg and measured 17.5 inches in thickness and was 12 ft long and 12 ft wide. It contained 68 kg mustard, 468 kg corned beef, 118 kg cheese, 240 kg lettuce and 1,618 kg bread.

In the mood for something quirky?

If you’re bored eating the regular sandwiches, there are a wide range of offbeat options such as, banana and bacon’; banana and mayonnaise; instant noodles; harm, cheese and Oreos; chicken and Nutella; and cheese and maple syrup.

 

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Chicken nuggets, whether served with burgers or with a dip, are one of the most highly consumed fast foods. Did you know the invention of this iconic snack is also related to the origin of a few other chicken-based dishes such as hot dogs and steaks?

Mincing and moulding

Robert C. Baker, a Poultry Sciences professor at Cornell University, New York, is often credited with the invention of chicken nuggets. Baker was worried about the fall in poultry sales after World War II. Passionate about poultry, he conducted a detailed research on poultry products as processed foods. Baker created a ‘predecessor’ of nugget, known as chicken sticks in 1963.

He made use of minced and moulded chicken, mixed with vinegar and salt.

The vinegar aided in removing the moisture and also bound the meat together.

Baker froze the chicken mixture before coating small nuggets of it with eggs and breadcrumbs. Following this, the nuggets were flash frozen at – 10 degree F, before being deep-fried at a high temperature.

This was the first time someone figured out how to keep ground meat together without a skin. Prior to his research, there was no batter that could remain intact in the process of freezing and deep frying.

Baker continued his research in the field and also invented a few other iconic processed foods such as chicken hot dogs and steaks.

A global hit

Chicken nuggets rose to fame when McDonald’s sold its first McNuggets in 1980. According to reports, McDonald’s was trying to create a successful chicken dish for several years, as the meat was cheap and highly profitable.

However, despite several attempts, they couldn’t create a successful dish. As chicken nuggets began to be consumed across the U.S., McDonald’s set up a team to research and come up with a nuggets recipe for their menu. In a few months, bite-sized chicken chunks, known as McNuggets began to be served in McDonald’s outlets. Following this, several other fast-food joints across the world began serving nuggets. In just a few years, the crispy deep-fried snack shot to global fame.

Peri-peri or parmesan?

There are several types of nuggets available for people with varied dietary preferences, from vegan to paleo and keto. There are also a wide range of quirky flavours such as parmesan, Korean BBQ, pretzel-crusted, honey garlic, coconut, peri-peri, lemon grass and wasabi.

A symbol of our era?

According to experts, in the half-century after 1961, per capita meat and egg consumption has doubled.

This timeline coincides with the invention of several poultry-based processed and frozen foods such as chicken nuggets and hot dogs.

Reports suggest future civilisations will find evidence of the anthropocene through the 50 billion-bird-a-year consumption in the fossil record.

 

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Food writer Tori Avey tells us the story of the burger. Hamburgers may well be considered America’s favourite food, she says. You can buy a hamburger anywhere –in small hole-in-the-wall diners, at the drive-through fast food chains, and in high-end restaurants. Worldwide, McDonald’s sells 75 hamburgers per second.

Hamburg, a town in Germany, is where the first hamburger was made. Much later, in the 19th century, beef from German Hamburg cows was minced and combined with garlic, onions, salt and pepper, shaped into patties (without bread or a bun) to make Hamburg beef. Diners loved these burges, but they were expensive because of the price of the Hamburg beef. Then Germans migrated to New York and Chicago, and opened restaurants to make a living. They served an American version of the German burger. During the Industrial Revolution, factory workers were served Hamburg steak from food carts. They were too slippery to eat standing, so a cook sandwiched the meat patty between two slices of bread, and the Hamburg sandwich was born. American soon shortened the name to “hamburger.”

Now, hamburgers are made in a number of ways, including with vegetables. In countries where beef is not part of the traditional diet, it is substituted with potato. So, if you  order a veg burger, be ready to bite into an aloo tikki. The beef hamburger is so popular that environmentalists now fear it is not sustainable. Scientists are trying to grow burger meat in petri dishes in a lab to meet the hamburger demand worldwide.

 

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It is a round dish with a crumbly crust filled with jam and jelly. Among the fillings, the apple stuffing is supposed to be the best. In the U.S., the pie is served as dessert during the Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. But the pies we eat today have a short history, though people have been baking dough filled with stuff for a very long time. According to Time.com, in medieval England they were called pyes, and apart from the sweet fillings, they also had meat –beef, lamb, wild duck, magpie pigeon – and were spiced with pepper, currants, dates. Historians say ancient Greeks made the first pie-shells by mixing flour and water. Wealthy Romans used many kinds of meat – from even mussels and other sea creatures in their pies. Cato the Younger (scribe) recorded the popularity of the sweet pie as a dessert in Roman meals.

In 1621, people (the Pilgrims) crossed the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World of America. They carried salty meat pies with them to the colonies in America. The pumpkin pie, now a must-have during the Thanksgiving feast, was first recorded in a cook-book in 1675. The British made this pie with squash, and the American version with red pumpkin became popular in the 1800s. The colonists cooked many types of pies. With their crusty covers, pies were preserved food, and kept their fillings fresh in the winter months. Documents show that the Pilgrims used dried fruit, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg to season their meats. A cookbook from 1796 mentioned only three types of sweet pies; a cookbook written in the late 1800s had 8 sweet-pie varieties; in 1947, Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking listed 65 different varieties of sweet pies. The original pie had a shell that could not be eaten, and the apples did not have added sugar. The apple pie was mentioned first in 1589 by poet R Greene in the poem Menaphon: “They breath is like the steeme of apple pies.” Pies today are eaten the World over, and have all kinds of stuffing – from apples to avocados.

 

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When you were biting into a slice of your favourite pizza, did you ever wonder ever why this favourite food item is spelt and named so oddly? With its two Zs, you have to learn to pronounce it properly before you can order it. Say pit-zz-a to get it right!

The word pizza was first seen in English writing in the early 1800s, but lexicographer John Florio had described pizza as “a small cake or wafer” in his 1598 Italian-English dictionary. Pizza, as you can guess, is an Italian word. Some think the Greek pitta (pita, which means “bran bread”) is the source. Some think it is from the Langobardic (an ancient German language in northern Italy) bizzo, meaning “bite.”

 

Who made the first pizza?

The Italian version of the pizza (specially the one from Naples) is what we are most familiar with, and so most people think Italians invented the modern pizza. But baked bread with different toppings was being eaten long ago in different parts of the world. The pissaladiere from Provence, coca from Catalonia, and lahmacun from the Middle East look and taste the same as the modern pizza.

What is a pizza? It is a flat, open pie with a generous coating of tomato sauce and a heavy sprinkle of mozzarella cheese. It was first made by baker Raffaele Esposito in Naples. In 1889, he made a patriotic pie that was topped with mozzarella, basil and tomatoes to reflect the colours of the Italian flag, in honour of King Umberto and Queen Margherita’s visit. The story goes that the Queen loved the pie and it came to be called Margherita.

In the U.S., Italian immigrants began to sell pizza in their stores. The first pizzeria (Lombardi’s) was opened in 1905 by Gennaro Lombardi on Spring Street in New York City. But the wholesome dish became popular only after World War II. Why? American and European soldiers who had done duty in Italy had tasted the pizza and asked for pizzas to be served in restaurants when they returned home.

Is it a pie, a pizza, or a pizza pie?

On the East Coast of the U.S., you can call a pizza a “pie” or a “pizza pie.” The use of “pie” for “pizza” dates back to the 1800s. But outside the U.S., these terms are not used for pizza at all. In some places in the U.S., you can order a “Za”, which will be understood as the shortened form of the word pizza. (In grammar, such a shortening of a word is called a “clipping.”) How do we know a pizza is well-made? A pizzaiolo (a pizza maker) will judge a pizza by its leopard spots (the black spots on the crust) or its hole structure (the holes in the bread’s interior).

 

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From west Asia to China, meatballs are prepared and consumed in numerous ways. This dish has been part of ancient cuisines and is still adapted to appeal to people’s tastes.

HISTORY

Though it is difficult to trace the exact origin of meatballs, most food anthropologists believe one of the first meatballs was prepared in the Persian Empire between 6th and 7th Century BC. Known as kofte, these meatballs were mostly made with lamb or beef meat. “Kofte” is the Farsi word for pounded meat.

However, some experts suggest today’s meatballs are successors of minced meat balls prepared in the ancient Roman Empire. A collection of Roman recipes compiled in 4th and 5th Centuries A.D., known as “Apicius”, includes varieties of meatballs made with different types of meat.

The dish is believed to have spread across trade routes to reach Europe. By the 5th Century A.D., meatballs were believed to have been prepared across Italy. These Italian meatballs, called polpettes, were very similar to the recipes in “Apicius”.

Polpettes became a famous meal option among peasants, who could afford minced meat. These were rolled together into balls with other ingredients such as bread crumbs or mashed vegetables.

Meatballs were introduced in the U.S. by Italian immigrants who moved in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The Italian polpettes, which were affordable for the then economically weak migrants, became their staple.

Tinned marinara sauce and spaghetti were eventually added to the meatballs recipe, to give rise to the famous dish. This new recipe became a fan favourite in a short span of time. Several restaurants were set up across the country to cater to the increasing demand for the dish.

TRANSCENDING CULTURES

Meatballs, known by different names, are a popular meal option in several countries across the world. In Sweden, meatballs known as kottbullar is topped with sauce and served with lingonberry jam. In Spain, spicy albondigas soaked in a tomato-based sauce is a famous appetiser.

The Chinese wan zi is made with a mixture of pork and vegetables such as water chestnuts and cabbage. These meatballs are added to clear broths. In Vietnam, balls of bo vien are added to pho (a noodle soup).

In Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia and Puerto Rico, meatballs are either added to a broth-based soup or served with bread.

In Turkey, kofte are a staple and served with almost every meal. In Israel, ktzitziot khubeza, a type of kofta, is pan-fried and served with a creamy dip.

In India, kofta is commonly found across States. Indian koftas are, however, not made just with meat. There are several vegetarian options too.

WIDE VARIETIES

From chicken, pork and fish to vegan meat, the ingredients used in making meatballs can vary.

Meatballs can such also be stuffed with items such as eggs, cheese, chopped vegetables and spaghetti. They can also be added to any dish ranging from soups, sandwiches and calzones to curries casseroles.

 

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Chikki, an Indian battle, has a significant role to play in most Indian States. In the northern region, chikkis are synonymous with winter snacking. Festivals such as Lohri and Makar Sankranti would be incomplete without the preparation of chikkis.

All the way from Lonavala

The origin of the popular chikki can be traced back to Lonavala in Maharashtra. In the late 1800s, when the first train tracks were being laid in Lonavala, several hundred workers were involved in strenuous physical work. Bhimraj Agaewal, a confectioner, made a dish he called gud dani, which comprised jiggery and peanuts to satisfy the hunger of the workers. He also made another variant with puffed rice instead of peanuts. This snack was easy to prepare and also gave the workers enough energy to work.

Soon, gud dani became popular among the workers and also the train services began, several people visited Agarwal for the confection.

Agarwal’s son Maganlal is said to have popularized the sweet treat. Maganlal opened several sweet shops across the region and they are extremely popular even today.

What’s in a name?

There are no evidences of how the snack came to be known as chikki. However, some food experts believe the word ‘chikki’ could be an adaptation of “chikat”, Marathi word for sticky”.

 Chikki is also known by different names across the country. In Tamil Nadu, it is known as kadalai mittai and ellurundai, and in Kerala, it is famously known as kapilandi mittai, ellunda and abhayaarthi katta. In Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, it is called palli patti. In Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, this sweet is called layiya patti. In several northern States, apart from being known as chikki, it is also called gajak or maroonda.

Exciting flavours

Chikkis can be mad with a wide variety of ingredients ssuch as peanuts, walnuts, cashews, almonds, sesame, dates, dry figs, coconuts, hazelnuts, macadamia, pistachios and dried rose petals. There are also several new flavours such as chocolate, peanut butter, berries and orange, being prepared in the last few years.

Chikkis are versatile and can be consumed by people with a wide variety of dietary preferences. Chikkis are also a healthy option for those who keep a count on their calorific intake because ingredients such as oats, sunflower and pumpkin seeds can be used instead of peanuts and cashews.

 

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