Swad Bihar Ka Book

The Book

Swad Bihar Ka is an extensive coffee table book covering the food and savoury recipes popular in Bihar — how they are made, and where they come from. It goes into the details and intricacies of Bihari food rather than staying with the dishes people already know.

The Subject

Bihar's food is the cooking of three distinct regions that rarely get
distinguished from outside the state — Magadh in the south, Mithila in the
north, and Bhojpur in the west — and the differences between them are real
enough that a dish will change name, method and occasion across a few hundred
kilometres.

The best-known export is litti chokha: roasted wheat balls stuffed with spiced
sattu, served with a mash of fire-roasted aubergine, tomato and potato. Sattu
itself — roasted gram flour, drunk as a summer cooler or used as a filling —
runs through the whole cuisine and has recently been rediscovered elsewhere as a
protein food. The sweets are their own tradition and are strongly tied to
particular towns: khaja from Silao, tilkut from Gaya, anarsa, thekua made at
Chhath, and the laddus of Maner.

Chhath in particular shapes the calendar. It is the state's defining festival
and it is organised around food prepared under strict rules of purity, which is
part of why so many Bihari recipes have survived in a fixed form rather than
drifting the way everyday cooking usually does.

How We Are Making It

The book is being developed by Winning Pixels in collaboration with Jagran Prakashan.

Where It Is Going

It is set for release across all the major outlets.