THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIAN SWEETS FOR CELEBRATIONS
Monday, March 2, 2020 IST
No Indian wedding is complete without boxes of mithai and why oh why would you not have mithai. Firstly let’s just clarify what mithai is. Mithai is Indian sweets, simple yes, but this is then broken down further to hundreds of different types of sweets from ladoo, barfi, besan, gulab jamun, petha, halwa and so much more. The choice of flavours are endless but it is a must at a wedding and any celebratory event, a birthday, birth of a baby or even passing your GCSE’s and if you’re lucky when you finally get your drivers license. At Ragamama Ragasaan, we know that mithai is important and that is why we can serve your guests with sweet delights with delicate flavours that are perfect to begin with, and if you like serve with freshly brewed tea or coffee.
Confectionary that consists of clarified butter and sugar is creamy and rich screams out ‘eat me’. Sometimes this is an acquired taste and back in our hay days we wouldn’t dream of gobbling down pieces of barfi because we were led to believe that ghee is bad for you, thank goodness it is quite the opposite today. A luxury treat with a cuppa, perhaps the sweet shops that line the popular shopping roads across the UK have realised on that if the mithai is greasy or far too rich, it won’t sell. There is the exception of ladoo. These balls of sunshine are made with gram flour, semolina fried in ghee. This is then drenched in sugar syrup and then shaped into golf ball sized balls. And because we are passionate about food, everything is good in moderation. The skill in making mithai seems easy but the consistency has to be perfect. Sugar syrup that hasn’t thickened – and the test is the string test and not a sugar thermometer can result in the mithai not setting… and once it’s cooled it would be very difficult to fix it. The string test is basically when you take a rice grain amount of sugar syrup – without burning your finger and pinch slowly. If the sugar syrup has at least two strings, the syrup is ready and if it doesn’t then continue to simmer the syrup until it has thickened more.
So why are Indian sweets mandatory to have for a celebration? According to Hindus, all the ingredients in mithais; sugar, milk, and ghee are considered to be ‘sattvic’ which means pure and can be eaten by everyone, even spiritual leaders and vegetarians. As they are pure ingredients, mithai is also offered to the gods and distributed to the devotees in temples. Mithai is used to break fasts or eaten during a fast bearing in mind that the term mithai has no religious significance. This old tradition has been kept alive for centuries and mithai will always be served at times of celebrations. Many Indian restaurants will have fresh mithai daily and you may have noticed they pretty much are all pure vegetarian restaurants. Next time you walk along the famous Belgrave Road in Leicester you will notice that every mithai shop is pure vegetarian, so anyone who wishes to take a box to the temple may do so.
So with this deep tradition of considering mithai to be pure and an offering to the gods, this is why mithai is given to all the guests at weddings; a small gesture of appreciation of attending such a joyous event. Not many people will know the reason of handing out boxes of sweets to guests today at weddings, and many sweets can be in the form of cupcakes, chocolates and new innovative Indian sweet companies making their mark in the sweet gifting part of celebrations, with contemporary yet traditional mithai.
Related Topics
Related News & Articles
A team of Indian-American researchers have used an ingenious process to enable curcumin found in turmeric to kill cancer cells.
Recently posted . 856 views . 1 min read
New Delhi: All the members of New Delhi-based S. Rahul’s family are health-conscious. That’s the reason why olive oil bottles, often perceived to be a h...
Recently posted . 896 views . 3 min read
• Superfoods rich in antioxidants can boost our immune systems to better cure infections and prevent disease. Many have been eate...
Recently posted . 917 views . 4 min read
Poha is a much-loved Indian breakfast food that has a number of variants in different parts of the country. Whether you like to eat it the traditional way with pean...
Recently posted . 1K views . 4 min read
Indian ketogenic Diet: All spices, as well as paneer and legumes are keto-friendly, leaving desi keto diet followers with a whole world of Indian dishes to include ...
Recently posted . 957 views . 1 min read
Trending News & Articles
Lung cancer is usually not noticeable during the early stages. Most people are diagnosed when the disease is at an advanced stage. According to Cancer.org, it is ...
Recently posted . 7K views . 2 min read
The health benefits of wood apple include [1] relief from constipation, indigestion, peptic ulcer, piles, respiratory problems, diarrhea, and dysentery. It also b...
Recently posted . 4K views . 2 min read
Bael, also known as the “Wood Apple”, is a species native to India. The bael tree is considered to be sacred to the Hindus. A famous drink known as sh...
Recently posted . 4K views . 2 min read
Do you know what milia are? Milia is a skin condition which causes the appearance of small white hard bumps on the skin which usually appear on the face, neck or ch...
Recently posted . 4K views . 2 min read
More in Food & Health
If you squirt hand sanitizer thinking it's a safe way to clean your hands, think again. Here are 5 hidden dangers you may not know about.
Recently posted. 990 views . 1 min read
If you are expanding your home gym, you're probably wondering if there is an affordable tool for an effective bicep workout. The preacher curl bench is exactl...
Recently posted. 573 views . 3 min read
Fried, roasted, milked or boiled, jackfruit seeds are being used extensively in fusion dishes in Indian restaurants and cafes
Recently posted. 702 views . 0 min read
Recently posted . 888 views
Recently posted . 735 views
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 1K views
Recently posted . 1K views . 114 min read
Recently posted . 1K views . 39 min read
Smartphone screens are one of the dirtiest surfaces ever, even more so than your toilet seat and the desktop mouse.
Recently posted. 950 views . 1 min read
Consuming pure maple syrup extract might also help defend against Alzheimer’s sickness and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disorder a...
Recently posted. 907 views . 12 min read