A Sweet Taste Of Terroir
Text and photos by Tania Banerjee
Moa was the first Bengali dessert to win the coveted Geographical Indication tag in 2015.
When the sun mellows, and the unbearable humidity of the summer months disappears, a round, fragrant sweet begins to make its appearance in sweet shops in West Bengal. These sweets are precious because they are rare, available only during the brief winter. Connoisseurs across the eastern Indian state have just a few months to savour this delicacy known as moa, or more specifically, Jaynagarer moa (moa from Jaynagar).
Jaynagar is a town roughly 53 kilometres to the south of Kolkata, the capital of the state. The origin of moa and its flavour profile are so intimately tied to the town that in 2015, the sweetmeat was awarded a Geographical Indication tag. This made it the first Bengali dessert to win the coveted recognition, followed soon after by rosogolla.
Jaynagarer moa is made from khoi or popped rice of the kanakchur variety, an aromatic folk variant that is indigenous to the Jaynagar region. The khoi is splashed with sticky nolen gur, a highly prized natural sweetener tapped from date palms. The distinct sweetness of the jaggery is further enhanced with a generous sprinkle of grainy khoa kheer (or sweetened, reduced milk). The sweetmakers grease their hands with gawa ghee or ghee made from cow’s milk and roll the mixture into balls, which are garnished with crushed cashews, pistachios and poppy seeds on occasion. Before putting them up for sale, a juicy raisin is placed on the orb.
Outside West Bengal, hardly anybody has heard of moa. Many Bengali sweets made of curdled milk, such as sondesh and rosogolla, are wildly popular across the country. However, these sweetmeats only entered the Bengali diet after the Portuguese arrived on Indian shores in 1498. According to the eminent Indian food historian, K T Acharya, artificially curdled milk was considered taboo by Hindus until the 1500s. The Portuguese curdled milk with wine, prompting locals to keep their distance from Portuguese kitchens. However, by the late 1700s, those taboos had crumbled. Subsequent colonisation and the long British rule in the state changed local food habits beyond recognition..
For a very long time, moa was confined to the villages around the present town of Jaynagar. They were manufactured in rural homes for personal consumption and distributed as gifts. Sometimes they were traded in ‘haats’ or weekly, open-air markets. In 1929, two friends, Purnachandra Ghosh and Nityagopal Sarkar, inaugurated Sri Krishna Mishthanna Bhandar, widely considered the first Jaynagarer moa shop in history.
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It is not the lack of ambition or demand that prevented the manufacture of moa in other regions of the state. Instead, it was the procurement and availability of the folk rice variety called kanakchur. The soil, water and climatic conditions around Jaynagar nurture this short-grained, nutty rice grain in the winter months.
Unlike basmati, kanakchur is neither a high yield cultivar nor grown commercially. Hence, the risk of it being lost to subsequent generations is very high. So much so that in 2014, the Plant Biotechnology Laboratory of the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Centenary College in Rahara, West Bengal, stored some seedlings of the varietal in a DNA bank and also conducted experiments of in-vitro conservation.
Ashok Ghosh, the 72-year-old son of the late Purnachandra Ghosh, and the second-generation proprietor of Shri Krishna Mishthanna Bhandar said: “There is a hell and heaven difference between the aroma of the present-day kanakchur rice and [that of the rice] when I used to work with my father and his friend.” He blames the degradation on fertilisers.
However, it is not entirely a story of gloom and doom. “I don’t face problems sourcing kanakchur rice because I work with indigenous rice,” said Chef Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar, who is originally from West Bengal but is now based in Goa where she runs Edible Archives, an ingredient-driven restaurant. “I have been researching it for the last eight years,” she said. “I am connected with many individual farmers and farmers’ cooperatives. There is an organisation in Kolkata called Amar Khamar that supplies good quality kanakchur rice.”
The uniqueness of the ingredients used in Jaynagarer moa doesn’t end with the rice.
Authentic Jaynagarer moa uses kanakchur rice and nolen gur, both of which are only available during the winter months.
Nolen gur, a type of date palm jaggery that is especially valued in West Bengal, is the other rare component. It is a natural sweetener made in winter from the sap of the khejur gaach (or wild date palm) trees growing in the marshy regions of the state. Sourcing the sap involves an extremely laborious process that has been perfected by professional tree climbers known as shiulis.
Moa manufacturing shops generally hire shiulis on contract to provide them with the necessary amount of nolen gur. But here too, there are several challenges. “The demand for date palm jaggery is rising, but the cultivation of trees is decreasing. As a result, shiulis are mixing processed sugar in the jaggery before selling it to the sweetshops,” said Ashok Ghosh.
After the first sap is collected from the date palm, it should ideally be given a rest of three to four days. The sap collected after this is of the best quality. Known as jiren kather gur, this is considered the most aromatic kind. Traditionally, jiren kather gur was used in moa making. Nowadays, the trees are not given sufficient rest time, which affects the aroma of the jaggery.
However, some efforts are underway to preserve these precious palms. In May 2020, a non-profit organisation called Lokamata Rani Rashmoni Mission planted 1,000 date palm seeds in the villages around Jaynagar. This was just after cyclone Amphan had ravaged the southern part of the state. Amitava Roy, the secretary of the organisation, said: “A group of five local youths associated with us collected the seeds, reared them in a nursery and then we planted the saplings on government-owned [plots of] land, mostly by the roadside and by the shore of wetlands. However, many local residents came forward and allowed us to plant the saplings on their private lands as well. This was a pilot project and we intend to scale up next year.”
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Being a traditional sweet that requires very specific ingredients for its creation, the scope of experimenting with Jaynagarer moa is very limited. However, some chefs have tried to reimagine it in modern creations. Kolkata-based chef Joymalya Banerjee used moa as a garnish on a mousse made of sweet yogurt, narkel nadu (or coconut and jaggery laddoos) and tiler nadu (sesame seed and jaggery laddoos).
Chef Anumitra, who experimented with the sweet at her pop-ups in West Bengal, said: “I made a kheer base and on top of it, I disintegrated a Jaynagarer moa. I further topped it with parmesan crisp. The kheer is mild, the moa is strongly sweet and because of the kanakchur rice, there is a distinctive aroma. The parmesan crisp added the saltiness.”
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Even though Bengalis have a weakness for sweets, Jaynagarer moa holds a special place.
The larder of Bengali households is never lacking in sweets. They are our multipurpose food: we can have them with any meal of the day, as snacks, to carry as gifts, and to serve to guests. The umpteen sweet shops in the state fulfill the ever-increasing demand. But before the Jaynagarer moa was protected by the GI tag, buying an authentic piece of the sweetmeat was not easy.
Typically, authentic Jaynagarer moa is manufactured in Jaynagar and distributed in packed boxes to independent sweetshops across West Bengal. However, even outside Jaynagar, there are several dubious sellers claiming to sell the original product. It is not uncommon for them to compromise on ingredients, sometimes substituting kanakchur rice with another kind, or replacing nolen gur with chemical fragrances and synthetic colours.
Local families used to once fall back on their in-house, self-proclaimed Jaynagarer moa expert to cut through the clutter. Even though I am a sweet aficionado, I was never allowed to buy this particular delicacy. My young age and relative inexperience was often cited as the reason. Instead, an aunt took up this responsibility. At first, she would judge the colour; next, she would twitch her nose like an oenologist to verify the aroma, and finally ask for a sample to taste. The transaction would be successful only if the sweets passed my aunt’s exacting litmus test.
The GI tag has taken a considerable weight off my aunt’s shoulders and Jaynagarer moa has been put on the world food map. Bengalis living outside the state now clamour for a slice of this winter sweetness. But shipping a product with a traditional shelf life of just two days is nearly impossible.
“In Jaynagarer moa, the khoa kheer is the ingredient most susceptible to spoilage,” said Bidhan Das, deputy director of the Indian Institute of Packaging in Kolkata. Since 2012, the institute has been trying to invent and refine methods of packaging that could prolong its shelf life. “If manufactured extremely hygienically, the moa remains fresh for 12 days.” Using pioneering packaging technology, the institute was able to increase the shelf life to 21 days.
The cost of the equipment and packaging material was estimated to be Rs 24.5 million (approximately $327,000), excluding the land required to build the plant and construction. While the state government initially agreed to pay for it, political chaos has stalled progress. The export of Jaynagarer moa, which would have benefited manufacturers and satisfied the hankering of fans settled across the world, remains an unfulfilled dream.
The bloom of palaash and gulmohar flowers heralds the advent of spring. Just as all good things come to an end, Jaynagarer moa lingers on our plates only for a little while each year. It leaves behind a lingering craving, one that can only be satisfied when the seasons change.
