Dispelling a few myths surrounding the origin of this classic dessert from Odisha.
MYTH #1 K. C. Das of Kolkata invented the rasgulla.
FACT: Rasgullas were invented in the holy city of Puri back in the 13th century. The Hindu female deity Lakshmi is served rasagollas on the last day of the annual Rath Jatra festival at Puri. This is a 700+ year old tradition called NILADRI BIJAY.
FACT: K. C. Das borrowed the dish. But he failed to replicate the complex preparation process in Kolkata, and landed up with a much simpler rasgullas that can be prepared at home.
MYTH #2 Cheese-making was taboo all over India during ancient times.
FACT: The word cheese is derived from Latin Caseus that comes from Sanskrit Kaasi indicating that chhena was made in India in ancient times.
FACT: Milk curdling from whey was done way back in 12th century India (See P. Arundhati's book," The Royal Life in Manasollasa,", Sundeep Prakashan, 1994.)
FACT: Perhaps lime juice was never used to curdle milk (taboo or not), traditionally milk was always being curdled with whey.
(Just imagine a huge country with 50% of the world's cattle discarding so much spoilt milk every day due to warm weather. What a waste it would have been!)
MYTH #3 Bengalis learned the art of cheese-making from the Portuguese.
FACT: All Indian dishes that have genuine Portuguese origins also have names that are derived from Portuguese. Examples: 'Bibenca' (Bibenca), 'Vindaloo' (Vin de Alho), Kaju (Caju), Batata (Batata). But the Indian word for cheese, 'chhena' is not a Portuguese word (the Portuguese word for 'cheese' is Queijo).
FACT: At most, Bengalis got the idea of curdling milk with lime juice instead of whey. However that is irrelevant to the history of the rasgulla, which is made from whey-curdled milk.
(In fact that Bengalis learned cheese-making from the Portuguese is a lie propagated by a section of Bengalis who want to portray Bengalis as the sole creators of all Indian chhena-based sweets. A certain parochial Bengali cook-book writer Chitrita Banerjee, with no training in historical research methods, claimed to have done some non-peer reviewed and highly questionable 'research' into this matter - apparently by comparing Goan and Bengali surnames - go figure! Chitrita Banerjee's books, which freely use Bengali words are meant strictly for Bengalis.)
MYTH #4 The Oriya Kheermohan is different from the Bengali rasgulla.
FACT: All over Bengal outside Kolkata, rasgullas are prepared in the same way as they are in Orissa (bigger, browner, tastier). Here, the dish is still called 'rasgulla', not kheermohan'.
(Thalassa Mikra, are you there?)
