Festive Flavours

BENGALURU:It’s that time of the year again, when farmers around the country prepare to offer thanks to nature and celebrate a bountiful harvest. It is customary to offer ellu-bella (sesame-jaggery) to family and friends and eat dishes made from seasonal ingredients. As the city prepares to welcome the twin harvest festivals of Sankranti-Pongal, several brands have put on a spin to traditions, offering a variety of unique dishes and items to convey the spirit of the festival.

Artisanal chocolate brand Anuttama, whose Spicy Tang dark chocolate bar was awarded the bronze medal at the 2021-22 Asia-Pacific International Chocolate Awards, has come out with a special chocolate bar for Sankranti. The limited-edition Nutty Sesame is made from roasted white and black sesame, coconut mylk, 50 percent cocoa and jaggery. “We always use jaggery as the primary sweetener in our products. Most of which are dark chocolate, sweetened to varying degrees with jaggery, coconut sugar and dates,” says PS Balasubrahmanya, co-founder, Anuttama. “The cocoa is sourced from our family-owned farm in Puttur in Dakshina Kannada district and a few other local farms,” he says.   

Festive Flavours

We process the cocoa beans by ourselves as well. We don’t use any artificial ingredients or preservatives like butter extracts, vegetable oils or palm oils in our products. It’s purely artisanal, made with little-to-no automated input.”

While Anuttama has turned the traditional mix of sesame and jaggery to offer a unique item that still preserves the spirit of the tradition, another brand from the city, Fiori Artisanal has gone a step further. “We are doing a small pickup menu inspired by items that you’d eat during the harvest festivals, be it Pongal, Sankranti or Lohri. These items have some elements of jaggery, makhana and such.

One of the special items we are offering is the strawberry and coconut ladoo. The strawberries come from farms near Nandi Hills, while the coconuts are sourced from the coastal regions. We hope it highlights the soil of Karnataka and spirit of Sankranti,” says Anushka Srivastava, founder of Fiori Artisanal.

Srivastava describes Fiori as an ‘eco-conscious, experimental dessert kitchen’ that creates delicious items from purely natural ingredients. “We want to be less cumbersome on the environment. So, we refrain from using any sort of artificial flavours or colours. Everything is done by hand,” she adds.

Meanwhile, Oota Bengaluru is bringing out a special Sankranti-themed menu, with a variety of seasonal dishes, avarekalu vada, avarekalu gojju, badanekayi bajji and mavinakayi jaggery panaka. Mandaar Sukhtankar, corporate chef, at the traditional Karnataka themed-restaurant, says, “It’s the avarekalu season currently, and mango harvests have just started, so we offering these dishes to keep seasonal and harvest theme going,” shares Sukhtankar.