Shopping in Kolkata, part 2

Gautam was often making great suggestions of neat stuff for me to buy, taste and play around with.  Here’s some more odds and ends I found, most of it with his guidance.

In Bangalore, I posted a snapshot of the sour-salty-sweet-hot treats called churan.  On the left is another, looks like a bottle of pills but they’re actually snacks.  This was tamarind flavor, available even in farflung Portland.  Also, lemon drops.  I wonder what the fore-runners of these treats might have been, if any…

And this is a variety of parsley unique to the area, called Kolkata Parsley I believe. 

I couldn’t resist these plump stuffed-chili pickles. 

I got this snack mix, a chivda, at a namkeen shop, cool place offering all sort of fried treats. 

I bought these flowers from a produce stall not knowing what they were.  Gautam eventually translated for me:  white egret flowers.  We fried them up into light pakoras, just a touch bitter.   You just have to remove the stamens first.

I bought these, too, not knowing what they were:

A friend of Sam’s eventually told us:  kokum.  This fruit is pretty common down South of Mumbai, used for its sourness to compliment fish.  I followed Sam’s friend’s simple recipe: peel and use the outer layer only, pop mustard seeds in oil, toss in some jaggery, melt, then lightly simmer the peels.  Made a very tasty chutney:

Eaten with Bengali-style mashed potatoes, this was hybrid Thanksgiving food! 

Jefferson took this photo of banana stems at Jagu Babu bazaar.  I guess I’m including it just because it’s a great photo.

Here’s a local lime, the gandharaj, fragrant as Thai limes, not very juicy.  I loved these.  I squeezed their juice on all sorts of food a Bengali probably wouldn’t:

I went to Koley market in front of the busy Sealdah train station to buy fish.  I bought a bag of mourala, like whitebait:

Fried ’em up crisp:

At New Market I bought some mutton patties and a warm loaf of plain cake.

Insided the puff pastry turnovers was simple, delicious minced mutton.  The plain cake came from a famous shop, Nahoum’s.

In the middle of town is a great sweet shop, Bhim Nag.  Next door, I bought these cauliflower-stuffed samosas.  I can’t help but wonder if these snacks didn’t know better days. 

Another fruit I’d never eaten previously, the sada jamun.  Mildly sweet, somewhat plain.

And lastly, a couple kachoris, stuffed savory pastry snacks:

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