The Value of Ghee

Renu Bala Chandra Ghosh, 80.

Mother and son, Kalpana and Topon Chandra Ghosh, churn milk into butter in their yard.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. It’s the sound of that ever busy household yard in Ghoshpara, Balijuri, in Jamalpur’s Madarganj. It’s off the road and down an alleyway to the right, unless you care to tread the straw between the weighty “Australian” and half-weighty “half-Australian” cows. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. There’s a thin rope being pulled, indeed there are two. First one side then the other, backwards and forwards in unison. The energy of teamwork is turning a claw-footed stick called a gholat or a kata – churning milk in a bucket into butter. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. It’s the sound of a thousand years. It’s hypnotic.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh.

Dulal, Ananda, Shopon, Paresh... There’s a row of rooms, a long row along one side of the narrow yard. Morali, Dhiren, Mitu, Panesh... And more rooms, on the other side and somewhere down the back. It can’t be easy for Renu Bala Chandra Ghosh, 80, to get about like she does. But she’s too busy to think about it, hauling baskets of leaf litter in from the roadside. Chanmahan, Dilip. Noresh and Niresh... It can’t be easy to count the cousin-brothers, without even considering the wives and grandchildren. There are many members of the Ghosh household. She is of course the mother of Paresh. Anyway, she’s too busy to think of it. The sun is setting. She’s collecting handful-gloops of butter from the bucket and slopping them into a metal pot. She knows the family’s life-recipe that’s descended through the ages. Hers must be a longer life of simple steps.

The cows have also been involved in ghee-making for many generations.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. There’s a woman, indeed there are two, walking up and down the yard nursing babies in their arms. A couple of children are amused, busily, with a drumming toy on the dirt. Chickens are moving about with their broods while warily two kittens watch the butter making from the side of the house, half-concealed by its tin wall. The cats are waiting for their chance to stealthily sample a little of that Ghosh dairy hospitality. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Every day. What a torment! It must be cat hell to have that sound, those enticing smells; except of course when the luck runs and it suddenly, briefly becomes cat heaven.

Churning takes about thirty minutes per bucket.

Ghee is a South Asian type of clarified butter. Its colour, texture and taste depend on the quality of the butter and the technicalities of the boiling process. Ghee has been used in homa, fire sacrifices, for over 5,000 years; and of course in food.

Nilma Chandra Ghosh, 25, has discovered guests in the yard, or maybe customers. There is no official market for Ghosh ghee. The customers are drawn in by the family name – like the kittens they find the source. She is of course the wife of Liton, son of Paresh; and she’s soon thinking about tea. She calls to Narayan, 18, to find biscuits. He is of course the son of Noresh.

Narayan is finishing his HSC this year, he says, and hopes to study political science. “Let’s see how my study goes.” He will not continue the Ghosh tradition as his mainstay like his elder brother does – on the other hand, it hardly seems likely he could live a life that is entirely ghee-free. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh – it’s teamwork. It’s the family. It’s the sound of Ghosh. Of a morning before class Narayan pulls the bovine udders; to the sound of squelching spurts he aims fresh Australian-cow and half-Australian-cow milk into a bucket. “Australian cows give twenty plus litres of milk per day,” he says, “An ordinary cow gives ten. Our family has been making ghee forever.”

The cows are the stars at the Ghosh's house.

Each brother produces a minimum of 2 kilograms per day but they make more when the prices rise, at the time of Eid and in winter. Each kilogram will sell for about 1,000 taka while the by-product, 35 kilograms of liquid doi, or curd, will fetch another 1,000 taka.

“We have around two hundred cows in total,” Narayan says, “Some brothers have more, others less. Those with fewer cows buy milk from outside. It takes forty kilograms of milk to make one kilogram of ghee.” Ah, but if the milk is bought from elsewhere an average day’s profits are reduced to 500 taka, so for a Ghosh those Australian and half-Australian cows surely come in handy.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. Kalpana and Topon Chandra Ghosh, mother and son, are the ones pulling the ropes, churning butter in the yard. They are of course the wife and son of Paresh. And it seems to be enough exercise – a half an hour upper-body workout per bucket. The trade must keep the whole family fit and healthy. And over and above the “together” in it, the teamwork quality, it looks meditative – that sort of repetition that’s all together good for the mind. Ghee has many advantages. A Ghosh life is a well-paced together-life.

From milk to butter.

First the milk is boiled before being dipped into the pond for half an hour to cool, Topon says. It’s then that the churning starts. When the transformation to soft butter is complete, the solids are collected and water drained. Then it’s boiled and sent to the pond again.

A thousand-year tradition.

“Madarganj ghee is tasty,” says Topon. “Its quality is high because of the fresh milk and our process. While others use machines we churn by hand.” And they know how to boil it – a secret, that final phase – medium heat, not too hot or too slow. About thirty minutes of flame from butter to ghee, so it goes.

Kalpana Chandra Ghosh knows the family secret of how to boil the butter in the final stage of making ghee.

And finally he’s arrived – he’s late but he’s here. Of course I’m talking about Paresh. “Many people come here and buy the butter instead,” he says, “It makes no difference to us because the profit is the same. But they make their own ghee from that, to sell, with added impurities. Our ghee you can only buy here.”

Paresh helps his wife strain the ghee.

As he helps his wife strain the newly boiled ghee in the kitchen house, he’s unmistakably cheerful. One could be forgiven for thinking he’s always so – that kind of life pleasure cannot easily hide like kittens beyond a tin wall. “Ghee can last for six months out of the fridge.” He’s proud of his product.

“Even if there was one taka profit in it,” says Paresh with a grin, “I would still make ghee.” Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh. The sound of a large, contented family. The sound of a thousand years. The sound of ghee-makers making ghee.

Ghee-straining

Cooling the ghee in a bucket of cold water. For demonstration purposes only. Usually it goes in the pond.

Oh, and, there’s one other little thing worth mentioning – those Australian cows and the half-Australian cows... There’s no such thing as an Australian cow, not really. Perhaps they came to Bangladesh from Australia, where there are of course many cows. But the black and white ones – in Australia they’re commonly called Holstein Friesians, from the north of Holland and Friesland in Germany, originally. That would make them a little more German-Dutch, technically. But of course it’s hardly something for Renu Bala Chandra Ghosh to worry about.

The Australian cows and half-Australian cows.

Ghee equipment.

Another afternoon at the Ghosh household.

Soft butter, with liquid.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: The Value of Ghee

Starting with Dessert

A dish of kheer mahan at Pabna Sweets, Ulipur, Kurigram.

The bell at Ulipur fire station.

Fire. In the long struggle for advancement, since the dawning of the first fireball sun, it is difficult to overestimate its value. For warmth, protection, cooking and light – fire has proved humankind’s ally.

The ability to harness fire is one of those attributes which seperate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. By way of comparison – and a word of warning from Ulipur, Kurigram – cows don’t understand fire much.

Kheer at the Kumar house takes a minimum of six hours of simmering.

But I’m telling it wrong. Let’s start again. You’ll know the bus journey from Dhaka to Kurigram is a long one; you’ll understand if I say those city passengers of haste, hassle, scrambling for attention at the bus counter and trying to squeeze through a traffic jam got down somewhere long before the destination. These are not the sort of passengers to reach Kurigram.

Kheer mahan destined for Pabna Sweets

As you know, in Kurigram you’ll find that old Bengal: life runs slower and there’s not only time to stop to chat to friends met on the street but also an expectation. Kurigram is the quiet courtyard of a mossy, high-ceiling government building. It’s winter badminton, impromptu, time-passing. In Kurigram traditional Bangladeshi hospitality reigns undisputed king – kindling homemade philosophy about fire and words of warning concerning cows are not the way Kurigram begins. Certainly not on an empty stomach...

In small-town Ulipur, for her part – and there’s fame in it – when it comes to stomach filling it’s as well to start with dessert. The best dessert, my friend, starts in the area behind the bazaar that’s dedicated to laneway and pond. Please bear with me – we’ll get there soon.

The area isn’t large, but to take the correct turns and find the exact gate of the Kumar residence isn’t easy. One would just about need assistance from a search and rescue expert to find it – so it was a good thing I had one with me.

Md. Makbul Hossein is my friend Mostafiz’s younger brother. He’s been working as a fire fighter for the Fire Service and Civil Defence for six years, stationed in Ulipur. We met in that most Bangladeshi way – randomly. I’d forgotten, let’s be honest, that Mostafiz was a Kurigramer, and it just so happened he called me at the very moment I sat in an electric JSA auto on the final leg from Kurigram town to Ulipur. “Where are you?” Mostafiz asked.

Md. Makbul Hossein at the Ulipur fire station.

Of course it had to be that before the remaining kilometres were covered everything was organised – one of the officers was on leave so it wouldn’t be a problem to stay at the fire station! The choice of hotels in Ulipur is limited but to stay at a fire station was a first for me.

Unlike at a hotel, just outside the room was a large rusty bell which tolls for shift changes – there’s always someone on duty. It tolls for morning roll call, but I’d let you know visitors don’t need to attend. It can toll at any moment, repeatedly, in case of emergency.

There’s a fire emergency almost every day and the officers are trained to ready themselves and be on the fire truck within approximately thirty seconds. I bravely suggested I could be at the fire truck first: brave only in words – they would’ve been returning home again before I got my act together. My claim was never tested – fortunately those days were quiet.

And one afternoon, I confess, on returning to the fire station to find nobody in the yard for adda, I was tempted to ring the bell – a chatting emergency, conversation within thirty seconds! But of course considerate guests don’t do such things.

Anyway, with his fire fighting training and rescue knowledge locating the Kumar residence wasn’t challenging for Makbul.

The kheer mahan kitchen at the Kumars'.

Makbul makes his living from fire; so do the Kumars. Inside their yard an enormous pot of milk slowly boiled over a pit flame – into it are added bay leaves and cardamom, and other ingredients which Sunil Kumar, head-of-household and the other side of 50, ‘doesn’t want to say just now.’ You’ll understand it’s hardly likely this culinary inventor was going to divulge the entirety of his secret recipe for kheer, that sweetened, thickened milk used in several Bangladeshi dishes.

He did say however – a little tip – that there’s no sugar in it and the slower the milk cooks the greater the sweetness retained. Kumar-kheer requires six hours of boiling and stirring.

The humble but famous Pabna Sweets, Ulipur main road.

There’s history in that fire – in Kurigram town it’s universally acknowledged the finest kheer mahan, that type of sweetmeat, comes from Ulipur. And in Ulipur the recommended shop name is likely to be Pabna Sweets. Sunil, originally from Belkuchi Upazila in Pabna, has passed on business and culinary secret to his thirty year old son Sanjid. They’ve been making kheer mahan for twenty-five years – indeed, Sunil says he invented it.

Kheer mahan, the finished product, is an elongated ball of that fresh, unripened curd cheese called chhana, made in a process similar to ricotta. The milk is boiled, curdled with a small amount of whey, and the resulting coagulated curd is collected, wrapped in cloth, strained, beaten and kneaded until it becomes firm and smooth. The lengthened ball of chhanna, when draped in the attire of the Kumars’ kheer, takes on an altogether new dimension of delicious.

It won’t surprise you that kheer mahan, both the Kumars’ and the many versions from other kitchens, are sold all across Ulipur. You’ll see in the main street an oversupply of kheer mahan vendors.

Three generations of the Kumars, Sanjid with his son on the left, Sunil on the right at home amidst the day's kheer mahan production.

Sunil Kumar first learnt the sweetmeat trade at a shop in Dinajpur where he refined his skills on all manner of sweets – cham cham, rasgulla, rajbogh, chhena jalebi – before he got creative. His innovation starts with an idea that slowly cooks and curdles in his mind – then there are experiments before the new variety emerges. These days his imagination has grown big – you’ll understand as he explains his ‘atomic bomb’ project. A single piece of this industrial-sized sweetmeat, perhaps in the shape of a fish or a boat, can weigh several kilograms. His first atomic bomb involved a 2.5 kilogram chhanna armament sent to Dhaka for somebody’s birthday.

Sanjid Kumar has taken charge of Pabna Sweets.

His son Sanjid meanwhile dreams to expand the business that currently sells 15-20 kilograms of kheer mahan per day. The problem is finance – and Sunil’s atomic programme suffers similarly from a lack of capital.

Yet according to Sunil the most important factor in running a successful sweetmeat business is cleanliness – high hygiene standards bring customers back.

Back at the fire station you’ll be hearing of the rough driveway and the five turns down narrow laneways that the truck has to negotiate before reaching the main road. Vital seconds are lost and it’s disheartening for the fire fighters, well-equipped and ready to be on-truck within thirty seconds. They’ve written letters but it came to nothing.

And the leading cause of Ulipur fires? It’s cows kicking over the mosquito coils their owners thoughtfully placed in the barn of an evening to keep livestock well-rested and comfortable. Cows don’t understand much about fire.

Morning roll call at Ulipur fire station.

Meanwhile Sohel – another fire fighter – is on his way back to the station from a home visit in Rangpur. He’s excited, his head is buzzing because his colleagues have told him to expect a new ‘team member’ on his arrival. Who could it be?

The fire station at Ulipur.

Now that you’re satisfied with a good helping of kheer mahan, a final word of warning: it might be best not to mention Ulipur’s atomic bomb programme – it’s not a good world we live in – weapons of mass destruction – there are those who wouldn’t hesitate to launch a military strike before discovering that Ulipur’s atomic programme is milk-based.

Measuring ingredients in the Kumar household.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Starting With Dessert