🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Bengalis

Bengalis are a people of the Bengal region of South Asia, living in West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh. Bengalis live in the Indian state of West Bengal and in Bangladesh. Their cuisine is famous for milk sweets, which are a must at festivals, weddings and family visits.

Many sweets are based on chhena: hot milk is curdled with acid, such as lemon juice, and a soft fresh cheese is strained off. Chhena is used to make rasgulla — balls cooked in a light sugar syrup — and sandesh, a delicate sweet of dried-out chhena with sugar. Another famous product is mishti doi, a sweet yogurt made from boiled-down milk with sugar and traditionally set in clay pots.

The question of where rasgulla comes from became the subject of a dispute with neighbouring Odisha. In 2017 the Bengali version received a geographical indication in India under the name Banglar Rasogolla. The word rasgulla itself, as a general name for the sweet, is not protected. The milk for the sweets comes from both cows and buffalo.