Litti-chokhaVegetarianMain
Sattu-stuffed wheat balls baked in embers, drowned in ghee, eaten with a mash of roasted brinjal, tomato and potato dressed with raw mustard oil. In Bhojpur it is as likely to be eaten with mutton as by itself.
Bhojpur & Purvanchal · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain
Dishes
Two kitchens again. The village kitchen is sattu, litti, chokha, ghugni, rice and a thin dal, with mutton in a sealed pot for occasions. Banaras, thirty kilometres away, eats fried breakfast at dawn, chaat in the afternoon, a milk foam in winter, and paan after everything — a pilgrim city's diet, worked out over centuries of feeding people who have nowhere to be.
Sattu ka sharbat and makuni rotiVegetarianEveryday
Roasted gram flour drunk with black salt and lemon, or stuffed into a paratha with pickle masala. The region's answer to a working summer.
Banarasi kachori-sabzi with jalebiVegetarianBreakfast
A fried, hing-scented kachori with a thin potato curry and a jalebi, eaten before seven in the morning, standing in a lane. The city's most durable institution after the ghats.
Where to try: Kachori Gali near Vishwanath, and the Ram Bhandar and Chachi ki Dukan counters.
Tamatar chaat and chena dahi vadaVegetarianSnack
Banaras chaat, which is sweeter and softer than Delhi's — crushed tomato cooked down with spice and served in a leaf bowl, and curd-soaked cheese dumplings.
MalaiyoVegetarianDessert
Winter milk foam set under dew and skimmed at dawn, sold from head-carried trays in the old city and gone by mid-morning. Made only between November and February.
Where to try: The lanes around Kachori Gali on a winter morning.
Champaran-style ahuna muttonNon-vegetarianMain
Mutton sealed in a clay handi with mustard oil, garlic and whole spice, cooked slowly and served from the pot. A north Bihar dish that now defines meat-eating across the whole region.
Ghugni with churaVegetarianBreakfast
Black gram or peas cooked with ginger and served over flattened rice — the standard village morning meal.
Dal-pitha and puaVegetarianFestival
Steamed lentil-stuffed rice dumplings, and fried sweet pancakes made at festivals and at Chhath.
ThekuaVegetarianSweet
Moulded wheat-and-jaggery biscuit fried in ghee — the principal Chhath offering, and the thing the diaspora most often asks visiting relatives to bring.
Launglata and Banarasi sweetsVegetarianSweet
A khoya-filled pastry sealed with a clove and steeped in syrup, alongside the city's rabri, malai gilori and lal peda.
Machh-bhaat and diara fishNon-vegetarianMain
River fish in a thin mustard gravy, eaten on both banks of the Ganga; the diara villages fish and farm the same land in different seasons.
Bafauri and bariVegetarianMain
Steamed gram-flour dumplings, plain or in a gravy, made when there is nothing else in the house.
Banarasi thandaiVegetarianBeverage
Almond, fennel, pepper and rose ground into cold milk, with a bhang variant sold openly at licensed shops and drunk at Holi and Shivratri.
Staples
Rice and rotiSattuArhar and masoor dalPotato, brinjal, gourd and greensMustard oil
Sweets
MalaiyoLaunglataThekuaLal pedaBalushahiTil-gur and lai in winter
Street food
Kachori-sabzi and jalebiLitti-chokhaTamatar chaatGhugni-churaBanarasi paan
Drinks
Sattu sharbatThandaiLassi in clay tumblersTadi in seasonBanarasi chai in kulhads
The food of Bhojpur & Purvanchal — signature dishes, staples, sweets, street food and where to eat them. (13)