Food has often been labelled in two precise categories.
1. Food required for daily consumption &
2. Foods made for the gourmets !
I fall in the second category. :) For me the basic idea is not only to eat/make a good meal but how you can keep the variety of colours intact on the dining table. Sometimes it is also necessary especially in the daily diet to incorporate nutritious food for children and family. I take this opportunity to excuse my own self and readers [I have found none sadly] for not being a regular blogger. Blogging generally requires a daily update but due to several constraints, duties and personal matters I will not be able to be a regular blogger. Instead I pray that this blog is a means of sharing what is known to me or has been passed down from generation to generation regarding simple home made meals. Considering the fact that I am a Bengali by birth, born and brought up in Kolkata my love for the city and the city's passion for food has been an exhilarating experience which I have gathered during my growing up years till date. For this reason [and for the fact that I love History I thought of delving into the BACKGROUND of the BENGALI CULTURE. This might be in several parts beginning with a History of the Bengali Origin finally finding its way down to the different types of Bengali cuisine.
PART I :
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal (now divided between Bangladesh and India) in South Asia. They speak Bengali(বাংলা Bangla), which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী (pronounced Bangali). They are an Indo-Aryan people, though they are also descended from Mongolo-Dravidians, closely related to Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Assamese, Sinhalese, Munda, Tibeto-Burman peoples. As such, Bengalis are a homogeneous but considerably diverse ethnic group with heterogeneous origins.
They are mostly concentrated in Bangladesh and the states of West Bengal and Tripura in India. Today Bengalis are settled all over the Indian sub continent as well as in UK, USA .
THE ANCIENT HISTORY:
contd................
1. Food required for daily consumption &
2. Foods made for the gourmets !
I fall in the second category. :) For me the basic idea is not only to eat/make a good meal but how you can keep the variety of colours intact on the dining table. Sometimes it is also necessary especially in the daily diet to incorporate nutritious food for children and family. I take this opportunity to excuse my own self and readers [I have found none sadly] for not being a regular blogger. Blogging generally requires a daily update but due to several constraints, duties and personal matters I will not be able to be a regular blogger. Instead I pray that this blog is a means of sharing what is known to me or has been passed down from generation to generation regarding simple home made meals. Considering the fact that I am a Bengali by birth, born and brought up in Kolkata my love for the city and the city's passion for food has been an exhilarating experience which I have gathered during my growing up years till date. For this reason [and for the fact that I love History I thought of delving into the BACKGROUND of the BENGALI CULTURE. This might be in several parts beginning with a History of the Bengali Origin finally finding its way down to the different types of Bengali cuisine.
PART I :
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal (now divided between Bangladesh and India) in South Asia. They speak Bengali(বাংলা Bangla), which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী (pronounced Bangali). They are an Indo-Aryan people, though they are also descended from Mongolo-Dravidians, closely related to Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Assamese, Sinhalese, Munda, Tibeto-Burman peoples. As such, Bengalis are a homogeneous but considerably diverse ethnic group with heterogeneous origins.
They are mostly concentrated in Bangladesh and the states of West Bengal and Tripura in India. Today Bengalis are settled all over the Indian sub continent as well as in UK, USA .
THE ANCIENT HISTORY:
Remnants of civilisation in the greater Bengal region date back 4,000 years,] when the region was settled by Dravidian,Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic peoples. The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang that settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE.
After the arrival of Indo-Aryans, the kingdoms of Anga, Vanga and Magadha were formed in and around Bengal and were first described in the Atharvaveda around 1000 BCE. From the 6th century BCE, Magadha expanded to include most of the Bihar and Bengal regions. It was one of the four main kingdoms of India at the time of Buddha and was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas. Under the Maurya Empire founded by Chandragupta Maurya, Magadha extended over nearly all of South Asia, including parts of Persia and Afghanistan, reaching its greatest extent under the Buddhist emperor Ashoka the Great in the 3rd century BCE. One of the earliest foreign references to Bengal is the mention of a land ruled by the king Xandrammes named Gangaridai by theGreeks around 100 BCE. The word is speculated to have come from Gangahrd (Land with the Ganges in its heart) in reference to an area in Bengal. Later from the 3rd to the 6th centuries CE, the kingdom of Magadha served as the seat of the Gupta Empire.
contd................
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