Rasgulla or rosogolla is a popular sweet in India, especially in Bangladesh, and the Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha. In Singapore, you can find them in Little India and Little Bangladesh.
Street side rasgulla probably in the 1930s.
"Everywhere you go in Bengal, you will find what this vendor is making. Rasgullas, the most famous of Bengal's sweet meats."
Bengal of colonial times includes today's West Bengal state and Bangladesh (formerly East Bengal / East Pakistan).
Rasgulla is made by boiling milk till it curds which is known as chenna. The chenna is cooled, drained and hand formed into balls about the size of ping pong (table tennis balls). The milk curd balls are boiled in sugar syrup (optionally flavoured with cardamon, etc). The syrup saturated spongy balls of rasgulla / rosogolla taste sweet savoury milky and subtly sourish (from either lime or vinegar added to make chenna). Delicious.
Today, rosogolla is made at home, sold from street carts, in sweet shops, served as dessert in restaurants, and is available in cans.
Loved throughout India and Indian communities around the world, the origin of the rasgulla is contested between Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha.
Bangladesh, and the Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha are neighbours. They were all once part of British India.
According to Odisha legend, Hindu deity Lord Jagannath went on a 9-day long chariot tour (Ratha Yatra) with neither Goddess Lakshmi nor her consent. This made her upset and she refused to let him back into the temple (sanctum sanctorum). Lord Jagannath appeased Goddess Lakshmi with sweet rasgullas.
According to tradition, Goddess Lakshmi is offered rasgullas on the last day of the annual Ratha Yatra festival which is held in Puri, Odisha from late June to early July.
The day is celebrated as "Rasagola Dibasa" or rasagola day.
The contesting claim from West Bengal credits rasgulla to confectioner Nobin Chandra Das who is said to have created rasgulla at his shop in Kolkata in 1868.
Nobin's shop opened in 1864 but he initially struggled as he was making and selling the same sweets as everyone else. Nobin decided that he had to compete with new sweets, hence he experimented with different sweet recipes. His breakthrough finally came with his creation of sweetened balls of chenna i.e. the rosogolla.
Nobin's rosogolla differs from the Odisha variety by the addition of semolina (durum wheat flour) to increase the sweetened chenna balls' shelf life and also make the spongy balls more chewy.
In Dec 2018, a Bengali movie was released loosely based on the life of young Nobin and his rosogolla creation.
To celebrate Nobin's creation of rosogolla and promoting it throughout India, the West Bengal government declared every 28 Dec as Rosogolla Utsob or rosogolla festival.
Nobin Chandra Das' descendants still run the business which now grew into a chain of many shops in Kolkata and other cities in India. They also have a rosogolla cannery. Foodies report to the iconic original shop in north Kolkata like pilgrims. It is on my bucket list too 😊
References:
Street side rosogolla in Bangladesh
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