The lesser known faral

Usual suspects of a typical Diwali faral (festive sweets and savouries) platter are crescent moon karanjis with sweetened coconut fillings, crunchy-spiky coils of chakli, diamond-shaped sugary deep-fried shankarpali/shakkarpara and cashew-y kaju katli, flat or puffed rice and peanut chivda, and a host of laddoos, barfis and mithais... Every item of the faral used to be prepared at home. Today, the increasingly busy schedules have prompted families to buy these delicacies from home chefs or local halwais.

But amidst the allure of Bengali mawa and chhana sweet variants, Western sweet traditions of cupcakes and chocolates, cost-effective dry-fruit boxes, and even faral hampers, a few indigenous delicacies are seeing a slow fade. It's because not everyone enjoys their unique taste, lengthy preparation and simple presentation. Yet, these once formed an integral part of Diwali nostalgia.

"Initially, Diwali sweets were made from aata, ghee, sugar, grains, lentils and had a really long shelf life. Children, who lived in hostels, could pack these along and enjoy these for days. In fact, kaju katli, now common everywhere, did not belong to the faral," recalls food-critic, Pushpesh Pant. He says people have stopped preparing apupa (popularly known as malpua), important to the Diwali puja. "It's the most ancient sweet in India as its recipe is listed in Vedic literature. It's a very simple soft, melt-in-the-mouth dish from fermented suji batter, green caradamon and fennel seeds." Even roat is not made anymore. "It is a biscuity sweet, made from jaggery, flour and lots of ghee."

Both sweets were popular in the Hindi heartlands – UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarkhand, Jharkhand and bits of Punjab and Rajasthan.

Nashik-based Madhuli Ajay, founder of a food blog (www.my-foodcourt.com), says the Maharashtrian sweet anarsa – fried jaggery-and-rice flour pancakes slathered generously in poppy seeds – is rarely made at home, because of its tedious making process. But anarsa takes her back to her grandmother's kitchen and the brass containers she'd store the sweet in. "Personally, I don't enjoy the sweet. I can't eat more than two pieces because I feel heavy.

But I make anarsa every Diwali just to remember my grandmother. She taught me to make it right from scratch. Yet, my anarsas never turn out as good as hers...," says Ajay. Pat on the back for those who attempt this sweet as it's a test of patience because it takes 10-12 days to make it. Rice is soaked in water for three days, then dried, powdered and mixed with jaggery. For the next 6-7 days, it is regularly pounded with a pestle for the right consistency and mixture. The palm-size pancakes are then fried in ghee, cooled and stocked in an airtight container. "The jaggery and ghee give the anarsa a deep, caramelised flavour, missing in the ones made from sugar and oil," says Ajay, adding she also misses 'Diwali nasta (breakfast)' tradition – of one big thaal (plate) from which the whole family gathers early morning to eat. It carries dry faral, with individual bowls of one hot local item for the
day, like poha.

From Gujarati specialties, there is the damni dhokla that quite unheard of, unlike the fluffy fermented rice and chickpeas cubes of the tea-time dhokla family it hails from. Nikita Dalal, pastry chef, 24, from Mumbai, whose mother initially dissuaded from deep frying Gujarati savouries such as mathiya and charofali for Diwali lest specks of the excited, hot oil flew on her, says the damni dhokla is comparatively well-behaved. To its flour – made from multiple daals with parboiled rice – add a hot water concoction of jaggery, salt, red chilli powder, green chili paste, haldi (tumeric) and hing (asafoetida). After stuffing boiled black gram in the doughy balls, set these to steam in idli moulds or into paan leaf cones in the cooker for 20-25 minutes. This dhokla goes well with spicy, pudina chutney.

Other Maharashtrian fare nearing a wipeout is the kadboli – an eye-shape savoury snack mashed from chili, cumin, chickpea, urad daal (black gram), moong daal (green gram), rice flour and salt. Also on decline is chiroti (aka chirote, penori and padiru peni), popular also in Karnataka, which is a consortium of circles made from flour, rava, ghee and sugar, deep fried in ghee.

While gajar ka halwa – grated orange carrots in condensed milk, desi ghee and lavish toppings of dry fruits and nuts – is not faral, it's a popular Diwali dessert. Chef Amninder Sandhu of Arth, Mumbai, however, loves the kali gajar ka halwa her mother would make from the black carrot specimens she grew in her kitchen garden. This immunity-richer carrot variant that pops up in winter (November to February) only in North India, especially Allahabad, Lucknow and Benaras, contains anthocyanins (antioxidants) that makes it black like blueberries, grapes and blackberries. Sandhu's family inherited this dish made during Diwali from their Sardar neighbourhood in Assam. "As a child, I'd find the process of making the kali gajar ka halwa super-cool. Watching the grated black carrots turn the milk purple... and then the entire dish going jet black, to which mom would top with malai, for a classic black-and-white take…! Along with other happy home memories, I associate Diwali to this halwa. I've even put the halwa on the Arth menu," informs Sandhu.