Here's a piece about Bihu and pitha I'd written a long time ago, for somewhere else. Magh Bihu is in January, so I've got my timing wrong. But I'm going to Assam next week and I was feeling nostalgic, so you get to share in.
The Assamese celebrate Bihu thrice a year, but each Bihu has a different significance. The one in April is celebrated with music and dance and marks the beginning of the Assamese New Year. The one in mid-October is a time of solemnity and prayer, as farmers and their families wait out the season until harvesting begins and food becomes plentiful again.
The one in January, Magh Bihu, was always my favorite because it’s marked, above all, by feasting.
And the one delicacy that’s prepared in most houses during this time (or was, because it’s by no means easy and making it from scratch is becoming ever more rare) is the pitha. Pitha is the name for not just one item but a variety of them all prepared using rice flour as the primary ingredient.
There are some varieties of pitha that you can make in any season, but some can only be prepared with flour from a special kind of rice (bora saul) that you only get at this time of the year, so these are what I feel nostalgic about each year as January rolls around.
And making these from scratch is a long laborious process. When I was a child, my mother used to buy the rice a week in advance. Then she would grind it herself with the aid of a large wooden pestle and mortar. My sister’s and my services were also enlisted, and while I was too young to make more than a few dents in the rice with the heavy pestle, I eagerly worked up on the sesame seeds, beating at them till the black peels yielded the tiny white seeds.
The Assamese celebrate Bihu thrice a year, but each Bihu has a different significance. The one in April is celebrated with music and dance and marks the beginning of the Assamese New Year. The one in mid-October is a time of solemnity and prayer, as farmers and their families wait out the season until harvesting begins and food becomes plentiful again.
The one in January, Magh Bihu, was always my favorite because it’s marked, above all, by feasting.
And the one delicacy that’s prepared in most houses during this time (or was, because it’s by no means easy and making it from scratch is becoming ever more rare) is the pitha. Pitha is the name for not just one item but a variety of them all prepared using rice flour as the primary ingredient.
There are some varieties of pitha that you can make in any season, but some can only be prepared with flour from a special kind of rice (bora saul) that you only get at this time of the year, so these are what I feel nostalgic about each year as January rolls around.
And making these from scratch is a long laborious process. When I was a child, my mother used to buy the rice a week in advance. Then she would grind it herself with the aid of a large wooden pestle and mortar. My sister’s and my services were also enlisted, and while I was too young to make more than a few dents in the rice with the heavy pestle, I eagerly worked up on the sesame seeds, beating at them till the black peels yielded the tiny white seeds.