Kali Babur Bari's Sweet Delicacies
(কালী বাবুর বাড়ির মিষ্টিমুখ)
Love for sweet dish is a well-known affair in the Mukherjee Family of Janai and if it is "Monohara" sandesh they simply adore it. These great Bengali luncheons always ended on a sweet note, and it did not stop there, it continued with late afternoon tea and dinner as well. Lives revolves around tales of sweets from birth, marriage till death and memories laden with nostalgia keep haunting, weaving the stories and unfolding the secrets of the making of these sweet-desserts, a culinary art which remains the forte of selected.
Monohora
Each sweet biography in Bengal is laced with fascinating tales and Monohora- a sweet invented by artisan/s from Janai a village tucked away in Hooghly district of West Bengal is no exception. Monohora which literally in Bengali means one who steals the heart till date continues to be a favourite among sweet lovers. Unlike other sweetmeats, the genesis of this fascinating sweet remains unknown still one of the legends associated with Monohora biography is that one of the Moiras ( a caste group associated with sweetmeat business; nowadays it is referred to confectioners) from Moira para (neighbourhood of the Moiras) was entrusted by the then zamindar to prepare a sweetmeat. The zamindar (head of the village) left for some work and returned behind his scheduled arrival. The Moira was worried that the sandesh would go bad. He coated a lump of Sandesh in a thick sugar syrup so that the sandesh would not go bad. When the zamindar returned, he tasted the sweet and remarked that the sweet has stolen his heart and hence the name Monohora ( in Bengali it literally implies “je monk e horon korechche”- one who has stolen my heart).
Other Famous Sweets from Janai
Boro Bonde
Nikhuti
Makha Sandesh (Dedo)
