Receta Chingri narkel bata / bhorta – a spicy shrimp mash and reconnecting back to our roots

“Bengali cuisine is all about aroma and reticence” and with that Amit Chaudhuri in his Telling Tales went on to describe his discontent and disappointment on the steady decline of Bengali food in modern days. How the beloved “hilsa, tangda and pabda” has changed over the years, and how the Bengali spices gave way to foreign invasions, and why we cater the spiced up versions of Bengali food to the rest of the world. The austerity that surrounds the Bengali cuisine, the closely guarded secrets of Bengali cooking and lack of aptitude among the newer generations to learn the traditional way of doing it has forced the cuisine to its nadir. In spite of the rapidly diminishing true flavors of Bengali cuisine, the gastronomic Bengalis who can…