SPECIAL FOOD PREPARED DURING THE CELEBRATION OF NAVRATRI FESTIVAL

  

Today the start of Navratri coincides with the world food day. Celebrating both the events this Navratri special series of 9 blogpost will open with the theme Food during Navratri.

In some parts of India the festival is celebrated for 9 days with the name Navratri and in some other parts it is celebrated for 10 days naming it as Dusshera.

 In certain places Navratri is associated with fasting, rest of the places it is feasting. We will look into both the parts and get to know about the food practises during Navratri.

 During Navratri, basing on their tradition some devotees keep fasts, meditate, pray to Goddess Durga and seek her blessings, set up pandals for Durga Pooja, and organize garba nights. People come together to pray to the Goddess and ultimately celebrate the victory of good over evil.

Those who observe fasting, these are the certain points they follow:

* If you're observing a fast with just one meal a day, break your fast after sunset. For those on a fruit or milk diet, consume nourishment at regular intervals, ensuring that all your food choices are Sattvic.

 * During the fast, devotees eat sattvic (pure) foods, stay hydrated, and use rock salt instead of regular salt. They break the fast with fruit and offer prasad to the goddess.

 * During Navratri, wheat, rice, processed salt and most of vegetables like brinjal, okra, mushroom are avoided. Vrat-friendly grains like ragi, samak chawal, singhara atta, sabudana, farali flour, amaranth and fruits like banana, apple, oranges, etc are recommended.

 * On the first day of Navratri, devotees offer pure and pristine food to the Goddess. This usually includes boiled potatoes mixed with Sendha Namak (rock salt) and Singhare Ka Atta (water chestnut flour). Kuttu Ki Puri and Singhare Ke Atte Ka Halwa can also be offered.

 * Meat, lentils, flour and regular rice are avoided during a Navratri fast. Vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, arbi, yam, carrots, cucumber and bottle gourd are allowed.

 Special food prepared during Navratri are: 

 

·         Kheer, a preparation made using milk and rice.

·         Pure ghee.

·         Milk.

·         Sugar.

·         Honey.

·         Jaggery.

·         Coconut

       Sesame seeds.

Polishing off the luchi-aloor dom, maachh, mangsho with pulao, and mishti is usually followed by a bhaat-ghum (afternoon siesta). For the uninitiated, a pujo thali will usually have luchi, aloor dom, shukto, chop-cutlet, bhaat, dal, bhaja, shobji, pulao, maachh, mangsho, chatni, papad, and mishti.

 Durga Puja is a time for feasting, and there are many delicious foods that are traditionally prepared and consumed during this festival.

 Some popular dishes include mutton biryani, fish curry, hilsa fish in mustard sauce, prawns in coconut milk, mustard greens, and potato with poppy seeds.

 In south India the goddess, to whom the kolu is dedicated, is said to favor beans. That’s why probably sundal takes a prominent place in the Navratri

Festival foods, as is often the case, are a lot of work. In south India, efforts are doused in hot oil, showered with rice flour and soaked in sticky jaggery and sugar syrups.

Close to the traditional sweets come the “puttu” which is prepared preferably on the Tuesday or Friday of the Navratri. Here is its recipe

In the hot and snack section enters the “Sundal” the main attraction on all the 9 days.  

 * Peanut sundal

·      Chana sundal

·      Green gram sweet sundal

·      Pasi paruppu sundal

·      Rajma sundal

·      Kadalai paruppu sundal

·      Pattani sundal

·      Kondakadalai sundal

·      Sweet corn sundal

·      Karamani sundal

·      Ulundhu sundal

·      Kollu sundal

·      Soya bean sundal

·      Pasta sundal

·      Green gram sundal

·      Mochai sundal

·      Black bean sundal

·      White rajma sundal

 Soaked and cooked lentils are sautéed in oil along with mustard seeds, curry leaves, a dash of freshly grated coconut. Sundal is spiced with a powder that usually contains split Bengal gram, dried red chillies and coriander seeds. The proportion of ingredients for sundal podi varies from kitchen to kitchen, and some homes skip it all together, preferring to let the natural flavour of coconut and the heat of dry red chillies carry the sundal. 

 Next to puttu and sundal comes payasam which is prepared on the Navami & Dasami – the last two days of the festival.

Thus Navratri is celebrated with many food preparations and enjoyed by all. Make sure to be conscious in every way.

Food loss and waste undermine the sustainability of our food systems. When food is lost or wasted, all the resources that were used to produce this food - including water, land, energy, labour and capital - go to waste.

By preserving food, food waste can be reduced, which is an important way to decrease production costs and increase the efficiency of food systems, improve food security and nutrition and contribute towards environmental sustainability. For instance, it can reduce the environmental impact of food production.

This Navratri pledge to avoid food waste and save food for the future.