Lip-smacking delicacies at a unique event in New Town recently teased the tastebuds of food connoisseurs but in a totally organic and healthy way.
The Organic Haat at Jatragachi celebrated the World Food Safety Day with a two-day (June 7 and 8) event. Usually celebrated on June 7, it aims to raise awareness about the importance of food safety and promote actions to prevent, detect, and manage food-borne risks.
The Organic Haat in New Town, an initiative of the state’s agricultural marketing department, operates from 7am to 7pm round the year. It presently houses 16 stalls, operated by 30-plus organisations, across two floors. These organisations act as a bridge between the farmers and consumers and make the organic products available to consumers.
Different varieties of organic vegetable seeds on sale.
Badabon Harvest is one such organisation, who have been helping Sunderbans farmers since 2018 to overcome livelihood challenges. Chandrima Sinha, a member of Badabon Harvest, said: “The aim of the Organic Haat is to make organic products available at a controlled price. The organic items sold in departmental stores comes with a certification and that comes at a cost. Here, it is more on trust as the items are directly procured from the producer.”
“These types of initiative will help to retrieve the lost agricultural heritage of Bengal. Lots of traditional verities rice and pulses are no longer cultivated but an initiative like these can create awareness and demand of these lost food items and the farmers can be encouraged to grow them.”
Apart from the stalls at the Organic Haat event, seminars and hands-on workshops were held on organic farming.
World Food Day was marked in a grand way with exhibitions and fairs spanning over two days. The events included seminars and hands-on workshops on organic farming. There were informal panel discussions where the farmers exchanged their know-how. Farmers from all over West Bengal were part of the show along with regular stall owners. Since, it was a celebration of World Food Safety Day, the emphasis was on food, with stalls selling mouth-watering but healthy delicacies.
Mukti, one of the participants, works on organic food in Raidighi area of South 24-Parganas. According to Debabrata Halder of Mukti: “The aim is to prevent food adulteration with organic food. Since we are involving local residents, jobs are created and that helps the local economy to grow.”
Mukti offered set lunch menus for two days comprising local organic rice paired with local variety dal. The vegetables were also of local variety cooked in traditional way. The meal ended with a bowl full of payesh (rice pudding) made of local variety flavoured rice. Each thali was priced at Rs 129 and for extra payment one could add non-vegetarian curry items made up of country chicken, their eggs, duck and even turkey meat. The chicken, duck and turkey were all sourced from their own organic farm.
Two farmers from Birbhum display their wares at the Organic Haat.
Apart for lunch, the stalls had an array of evening snacks with bhetki fry being the show-stopper. The stall set up by Development Research Communication and Service Centre came up with innovative dishes such as ole (yam) and thor (banana stem) cutlets along with thor paturi. The rangalu (sweet patato) pantua was there to end the meal on a sweet note. A juice corner run by Ann Essential to re-hydrated the visitors on a hot and humid day.
No wonder the food stalls were the greatest crowd-pullers. But the other stalls had something unique to offer. Jibika Development Society stall had a variety of seeds on display. Other stalls were not far behind and had interesting collection of local varieties of rice and pulses. Although the theme of the fair was food safety but the exhibits were not restricted to food only. The stalls displayed a variety of organic wares beyond food and included handicrafts, jewellery and items of daily use made out of jute, bamboo, cane and even water hyacinth.
Different varieties of local organic rice on display at the event.
Chandrima Sinha concluded by saying: “These types of events need to be held at a regular interval as it creates awareness and unfolds unknown stories of the local organic produce and helps us to explore the Banglar Joibo Kotha (Stories of Organic Bengal).”