Sondesh

..after a tough day at work today, when I opened the door of my apartment, I was greeted by a faint smell of nicotine. That was an unmistakable sign of my flatmate being back from his vacation. Along with the pungent nicotine odour, he brings the mouth watering delicacies from West Bengal. Something told me that he won't come back 'empty-handed'. I headed straight for the refrigerator and was not disappointed.

This is Sondesh - the quintessential Bengali sweet. There are numerable varieties of this particular sweet and it is tough to tell which one scores over others. Everybody has his/her own likes and dislikes and so do I. This particular variety is made from curdled milk and jaggery. I guess all the bengali sweets are essentially made of milk or milk products. And bengali people have notoriously sweet teeth. In that state, you can find a sweet shop at every corner of the street. You can drop at anybody's house unannounced and be assured that the lady of the house will bring a glass of cold water and saucer full of sweets to greet you. As a kid, I was notorious for my lust of sweet. At times, I would gulp so much sweet down that my lunch would go for a toss. For good or for the bad, things have changed now. Just a couple of pieces is all what I can have in the memory of good old days.

No points for guessing why there some gaps in the corner of the box in this picture.