Cannabis in Bengali cuisine
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Cannabis in Bengali cuisine covers the drinks and foods that Bengali speakers in present-day West Bengal and Bangladesh made from bhang, the dried leaf of the cannabis plant, and less often from ganja, its flowering tops. Most bhang was drunk. The drink, siddhi (সিদ্ধি), was bhang ground with pepper and spices and mixed with sugar, water and milk. Bhang was also eaten: in majum, a sweet sold in Calcutta and Dacca; in fried pastries and an ice; and in the sweets of rice powder, coconut, milk and molasses that households in eastern Bengal offered at festivals and then ate. Officials, doctors and landholders in Bengal described these foods to the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in 1893. The place of the drink in worship is treated in Cannabis in Bengali Religion and its social life in Cannabis in Bengali culture; foods made with cannabis elsewhere are covered in Cannabis cuisine, and products sold commercially today in Cannabis edibles.
Drinking and eating
In Bengal siddhi was the usual name for the leaf and the official one, alongside bhang, subji and patti.[1]: 6 The drink went by bhang or siddhi.[2]: 156 Siddhi was a drink of the wealthy homes of Calcutta, in the account of the historian Utathya Chattopadhyaya.[3]: 100
Eating the drug was less common. K. G. Gupta, the Commissioner of Excise for Bengal, told the commission that bhang was "always drunk", and that in the form of majum or of siddhi kachauri, a fritter, it was eaten by "the well-to-do classes in town areas", though in small quantities. The province then included Bihar and Orissa: of the Rs. 1,984 raised from majum licences in 1892–93, Patna paid Rs. 688, Calcutta Rs. 559 and Cuttack Rs. 245.[4]: 45
The witnesses did not agree on whether Bengalis ate majum. Taraprosanna Rai, the Chemical Examiner to the Government of Bengal, thought majum was eaten chiefly by people from the North-Western Provinces.[5]: 308 Beprodas Banerjee, a pleader and newspaper editor at Barasat, wrote that its use was "confined solely to up-country men".[6] J. Kennedy, the Collector of Murshidabad, reported the opposite: the sweet was "consumed both by Bengalis and up-country people".[7] At Comilla the pleader Kailas Chandra Dutta found bhang taken in sweets and sherbets "even among the higher orders of society".[8]
Siddhi
The drink was made at home. The leaves were washed and ground to a paste with spices, then stirred into sugar and water.[5]: 309 At Burdwan the civil surgeon G. Price found the drink usually made with sugar and water alone, and sometimes with a bhang massala of cucumber seeds, melon seeds, rose petals, black pepper and aniseed.[9]: 282 A landholder of Ranaghat in Nadia listed rosewater, milk, sugar, black pepper, aniseed "and some other seeds, and spices", while the poor made do with water, pepper and aniseed. Some took the leaf with pan, the betel quid, in the way they used spices.[10]
The occasion that most witnesses named was Bijoya, the last day of Durga Puja, after the image of the goddess had been taken to the river. Abhilas Chandra Mukerjee, an inspector of excise, described the drink of that evening: bhang ground with black pepper and spices and mixed with milk, sugar and water or coconut water, handed by the mistress of the house to every member of the household and to everyone who called.[11]: 165 In Bankura the host offered visitors "a cup of bhang and sweetmeats for tiffin".[12] Those who disliked intoxicants were expected at least to touch the drink and put a drop on the tongue.[1]: 68[5]: 309 Devendranath Roy, who taught medical jurisprudence at the Campbell Medical School in Calcutta, wrote that Hindus regarded siddhi as "an emblem of peace and prosperity", and that it was therefore offered with sweets on that day.[13]: 327 Not every household put bhang in the cup. Raj Kumar Sarvadhikari of the British Indian Association wrote that callers on Bijoya were given sweets, sherbet and betel leaves, and that only in some places did a little bhang go into the sherbet.[14]: 495 Gupta wrote that bhang, drunk and "in the shape of various confections", was general at Durga Puja, but that the custom was declining.[4]: 46
The drink was not confined to Bijoya. In Jalpaiguri the sherbet was drunk at Durga Puja, at the festival of Kali and at smaller pujas.[15] In Mymensingh and the eastern districts it was drunk on Maha Navami, the third day of Durga Puja, at the festival of Lakshmi and at Sri Panchami. Balls of pounded wild bhang were mixed with milk, sugar and coconut water, offered to Shiva and then given out to drink. In the Dacca district young and old drank before the image of Durga on Navami, the priest pouring the liquid into each mouth.[11]: 165
Majum
Majum was named in Bengal's revenue inquiries by the end of the 18th century. In 1798 an inquiry in Bengal into whether the sale of any of ten intoxicating articles should be prohibited listed it beside opium, ganja, bhang and toddy.[16] Regulation VI of 1800 recorded majoom among the local names under which the drugs taxed by the excise were known.[3]: 92
In 1839 the physician W. B. O'Shaughnessy printed a recipe that he had watched being made in Calcutta. Its maker, Ameer, kept "a celebrated place of resort for Hemp devotees" in the city. He warmed four ounces of siddhi with four ounces of ghee and a pint of water over charcoal until the water had boiled away, squeezed the mixture through a cloth, and washed the green butter in water. Two pounds of sugar were boiled with milk for about an hour into a clear syrup; four ounces of dried milk and the hemp butter were stirred in, with a few drops of attar of roses, and the mixture was poured onto a cold slab, where it set into a thin cake that was cut into lozenges. A seer sold for four rupees. Ameer told O'Shaughnessy that there were seven or eight makers of the sweet in Calcutta, that he added thorn-apple seeds when a customer asked for them, and that all classes ate it.[17]: 8–9
The witnesses of 1893 described the same method with small differences. Mukerjee boiled the leaves with ghee over water until the resin passed into the ghee, which floated as "a green jelly"; this was worked over the fire with dried milk and syrup into a paste that hardened as it cooled and was cut into tablets. He called it "a favourite form of taking the drug".[11]: 162 Taraprosanna Rai described the leaf parched in hot ghee, strained and made into cakes with sugar and dried milk.[5]: 309 Pratapachandra Ghosha, the Registrar of Calcutta, had a thick decoction of the leaves cooked with sugar, milk and khoa, poured into shallow dishes and cut into lozenges.[18] Roy listed sugar, butter, flour and siddhi, with otto of roses sprinkled in, and dhatura seeds "by special order of the customers".[13]: 324 A former police officer and sub-registrar of the 24-Parganas also knew of a little dhatura being added "to make it strong".[19]
The sweet was a trade product. In Calcutta, A. Crombie of the General Hospital described ganja steeped in water for a day, filtered, and the liquid mixed into sweets, work "usually done by professional sweetmeat makers", who made them strong or weak to the customer's order.[20] Banerjee wrote that the sweet was made by "a class of confectioners who reside in large cities", and that Bara Bazar in Calcutta was the only place in his part of the country where it was made.[6] In Burdwan two kinds were sold in the bazaar, majum and barfi.[9]: 284 In the town of Dacca majum was made from ganja: Mukerjee wrote that half a poa of ganja was ground into a syrup made from 14 seers of sugar and boiled, and that the sweet was sold to retail vendors. Among those who ate it he named Kayasths, Muslims, traders and people from up-country.[11]: 160
Pastries, greens and ices
Bhang also went into savoury food. Mukerjee wrote that some of the higher classes in Calcutta ate bhang kachuri, a pastry of flour, spices and boiled pulses with bhang, fried in ghee.[11]: 162 At Burdwan a katchori of powdered bhang, dal and flour fried in ghee was made at home.[9]: 284 Ghosha's kachuri was a patty filled with ground bhang leaves and other condiments,[18] and Gupta called siddhi kachauri a fritter.[4]: 45 Sarvadhikari wrote that the green tops of the plant were fried in ghee "and taken as a vegetable".[14]: 494
Mukerjee also described bhang kulpi, which he called "bhang ice cream": bhang ground and mixed with condensed milk, sugar, rosewater and aniseed, then frozen. It too was eaten by the well-off in Calcutta.[11]: 162
Festival sweets of eastern Bengal
Mukerjee listed the bhang foods of the festivals of eastern Bengal in his evidence. Most were offered to a deity before they were eaten.[11]: 165
- At Sri Panchami, the festival of Saraswati, green bhang leaves were fried in ghee and offered to the goddess. Leaves boiled with milk and coconut pulp and sweetened were shaped into laddu; others were pounded into concentrated milk and rolled into small balls.
- Madan khir, of pounded wild bhang, condensed milk and sugar, was given to every guest or friend who came to the house at Sri Panchami. It was eaten in the Dacca district, and above all at Dhamrai.
- At Shivaratri a bhang laddu of wild bhang, coconut pulp and gur or sugar was offered to Shiva and eaten in Jessore, Khulna and Backergunge.
- At the worship of Kamdeb, the god of love, in the month of Chaitra or Baishakh, rice powder, gur and fresh bhang leaves were pounded together in a dhenki, the village husking pedal, offered at midday, and handed round to the villagers with batasa sugar drops.
- On Bijoya, satabari, balls of rice powder, bhang and gur, were sold in the Dacca district to the crowds who came to watch the images thrown into the river.
- When a cow calved, milk taken on the 21st day was boiled down, mixed with crushed bhang and made into laddu for Gorakhnath, whom Mukerjee identified with Shiva as the protector of cows. The balls were shared among the cowherd boys and everyone present. Mukerjee called this the Gorkhar laddu and found it in many Hindu households in eastern Bengal.
Banku Behari Dutt, the excise deputy collector of Backergunge, also reported gorkha larhus, "small cakes of bhang", given out in his district when a cow calved, and small cakes of bhang distributed on Navami.[21] At Comilla, Kailas Chandra Dutta wrote that people thought it a religious duty to take bhang "in some shape or other" at the festival of Saraswati, and that the sweets were made with sugar, milk, coconut and spices.[8] In Calcutta, a special excise deputy collector heard that Hindu confectioners made sweets "slightly mixed with bhang" on the day of the Durga immersion, which "the native gentry" ate.[22]
Since 1947
India's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 defines ganja as the flowering or fruiting tops of the plant and leaves out the leaves when they are not accompanied by the tops, so the leaf used for bhang falls outside its definition of cannabis.[23] A Press Trust of India report of 2022 described people in West Bengal drinking bhang on Dol Jatra, the Bengali Holi.[24]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Prain, D. (1893). Report on the Cultivation and Use of Gánjá. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press – via National Library of Scotland.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VIII, "Extent of use and the manner and forms in which the hemp drugs are consumed", paras. 415–429, pp. 154–158 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chattopadhyaya, Utathya (June 2026). Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India. Oakland: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/luminos.276. ISBN 9780520425699.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. K. G. Gupta, Commissioner of Excise, Bengal". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 17, pp. 44–48 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Assistant Surgeon Rai Taraprosanna Rai Bahadur, Baidya, Chemical Examiner to the Government of Bengal, Calcutta". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 116, pp. 308–309 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Beprodas Banerjee, Brahman, Pleader, Newspaper Editor, and Chairman, Baraset Municipality". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 217, p. 463 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. Kennedy, Magistrate and Collector of Murshidabad". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 20, p. 55 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Kailas Chandra Dutta, Baidya, Vakil, Judge's Court, Comilla, Tippera District". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 221, p. 475 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel G. Price, Civil Surgeon, Burdwan". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 108, pp. 282–284 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Surendra Nath Pal Chowdhury, Zamindar, Ranaghat, District Nadia". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 172, p. 391 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Abhilas Chandra Mukerjee, Brahmin, Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector, on deputation as 2nd Inspector of Excise, Bengal". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 63, pp. 157–175 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. F. H. Barrow, Magistrate and Collector of Bankura". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 10, p. 30 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Assistant Surgeon Devendranath Roy, Brahmin, Teacher of Medical Jurisprudence, Campbell Medical School, Calcutta". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 123, pp. 324–327 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Rai Bahadur Raj Kumar Sarvadhikari, Secretary, British Indian Association, Calcutta". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 231, pp. 494–495 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Jogendro Nath Bandyopadhya, Brahmin, Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector, Jalpaiguri". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 50, p. 118 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XIV, "The policy of hemp drug administration", para. 556, p. 267 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ O'Shaughnessy, W. B. (1839). On the Preparations of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah (Cannabis indica): Their Effects on the Animal System in Health, and Their Utility in the Treatment of Tetanus and Other Convulsive Disorders. Calcutta: Bishop's College Press – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Pratapachandra Ghosha, Registrar of Calcutta". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 98, p. 258 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Rai Kamalapati Ghosal Bahadur, Brahmin, Pensioner, Sub-Registrar and Zamindar, 24-Parganas". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 99, p. 262 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel A. Crombie, M.D., Surgeon-Superintendent, General Hospital, Calcutta". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 104, p. 277 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Banku Behari Dutt, Excise Deputy Collector, Backergunge". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 72, p. 209 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Suresh Chundra Bal, Baidya, Special Excise Deputy Collector, Howrah". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 69, p. 198 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 2(iii).India.
- ↑ "Bengal celebrates colourful Dol Jatra with pomp and gaiety". EastMojo. Press Trust of India. 18 March 2022. Retrieved 13 November 2026.