Navratri: Let the feasting begin

What is a festival without food? India and Indians know exactly how to celebrate their culinary flavours with fervor. It doesn't matter what religion or community you belong to, but we love talking about food for hours, often discussing plans for the next meal while relishing the present one. It is an important fabric woven into the life of every Indian—be it a Gujarati, Bengali or a Tamilian.

Bengalis
This is the biggest celebration for every Bengali. Durga Puja commences on the sixth day of Navratri (Shoshti), where the idol of the Goddess is believed to come to life (Pran Protishtha).  

'Bhog' or food offering for the Goddess is prepared in pandals from the sixth to the ninth day. The morning bhog typically consists of khichdi, mixed vegetables, chutney, payesh etc. The evening bhog doesn't include any rice-related food. Puri, five kinds of fried vegetables, suji halwa are prepared for the evening offerings.
Bhog is the first offering to Goddess then distributed amongst devotees. On the eighth day, bhog is  prepared on a much larger scale, almost anyone visiting pandals can have savour it.
On the sixth and eighth day, Bengali households eat only vegetarian food. On both these days, devotees can send other offerings to the Goddess. On the sixth day it's mostly fruits and sweets but on Ashtami (eighth day) a saree, a small box of sindoor and bangles are also added to the bhog thali. On the seventh and ninth day, there are no food restrictions.

Navami or the ninth day is signified by animal sacrifice or 'Boli'. It largely involves a goat sacrifice to the Goddess. Later, the meat from the sacrifice is woked and eaten by devotees. Followers of Lord Shiva refrain from animal sacrifice, they offer vegetables like pumpkin.

Dashami is Immersion Day; no Bhog is prepared on this day. Women worship the Goddess by applying sindoor on her forehead and symbolically feeding her sweets and paan. After immersion, devotees come back to pandals to have 'Dodhikorma' or a mixture of poha and dahi.
 

Gujaratis
Devout followers fast on all the nine days of the Navratri. People follow a specific diet for Navratri, if they haven't observed a nirahar (water-less) fast. They do not eat foods with onion or garlic or even oil in it. Some don't eat food with wheat, rice and vegetables. But that doesn't mean they don't relish festive food. In fact there are some absolutely irresistible fasting recipes which taste even better than your everyday food. In some households, people who fast during Navratri eat food cooked only in pure ghee. Apart  from that, they cannot use common salt or wheat flour to prepare the fasting recipes. But, you can substitute common salt with rock salt, and even a special kind of rice known as the Samvat chawal can also be eaten while you are fasting.
Dishes made of sago, potato and Singhare ka atta (kuttu ka atta) are also popular during this time. All fruits and food made of fruits are eaten during this festive period.  

Pic courtesy: Veganosaurus

Tamilians
The festival of nine nights is defined by Golu and sundal among the Tam Brahm community. Golu padi is a make-shift structure of wooden planks, which is used to set up idols and dolls mostly depicting gods and goddesses are displayed. No Golu padi is complete without the Marapaachhi dolls (the wooden dolls that depict a couple). Besides Golupadi, Sundal is the other significant aspect of this festival for Tamilians. For nine nights, nine different pulses are prepared for naivedhyam (offering to God) and distributed to friends, relatives and all those who come to see the Golu.

Sundal is a salad made with cooked lentils or beans often tempered with mustard seeds, urad dal and red chillies. Traditionally it was made as prasadam, an offering to the Gods, but these days it is available at any time of the day in the home or on the street. Sundal is normally made with chickpeas (garbanzo beans), mung dal, channa dal, peas, rajma (kidney beans), green gram dal, or peanuts (groundnuts). During these nine days, the Sundal is prepared without onions.

(Inputs from Bipasha Bandhyopadhyay and Chandni Shah)