jaynagar Moa, A Famous Bengali Sweet Was Exported Internationally For The First Time
As we all know, West Bengal is known to have some of the best sweets in the country. Just the thought of dishes like Rossogulla and Sandesh make our mouths water.
While some sweets are available all year round, others are only made in specific seasons due to the ingredients used to make them.
One of them is Joynagarer Moa which is a winter delicacy made with a rare variety of puffed rice (kankachurkhoi) and date palm jaggery. It is only available during the cold months
The seasonal sweet looks like a ladoo and is named after the area where it is made - Joynagar in the South 24 Parganas district.
Now, it is not just limited to the eastern Indian state; the first batch of Joynagarer moa was recently shipped to Bahrain.
"A trial shipment of 45 kg Of Joynagarer Moa along with 105 kg of palmyra jaggery from DM Enterprise has been stored at the central perishable center of the Kolkata airport. It will take an early morning Emirates flight on Wednesday for the destination," Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority's Kolkata region head, Sandeep Saha, told PTI. The sweet's shelf-life is five to seven days, said Joynagarer Moa Nirmankari Society secretary, Ashok Kumar Kayal. He added that if the consignment is successfully delivered, they have plans to export it to Italy and Canada.
According to older tales, the sweet originated in a village called Bahru in 24 Parganas district. A resident named Jamini created the original moa with just two ingredients - Nolen gur and Khoi. Legends say that around the year 1929, famous confectioners Purnachandra Ghosh and Nityagopal Sarkar, improvised the recipe by adding cashews and cardamom along with ghee which made it the sweet it is today