Bengali Ghee

Food preferences are inherently subjective – shaped by culture, what we eat in our formative years, and individual taste. Having said that, can we all agree that Bengali ghee is objectively superior.

Compared to ghee from the rest of India (let's call this "non-Bengali ghee"), Bengali ghee is cooked longer and at a higher temperature, which makes it more caramelised, grainier in texture, darker, and slightly sweeter. The two are so different that they almost shouldn't be called by the same name.

Non-Bengali ghee is basically a cooking medium. Bengali ghee can be used that way too, but it also tastes amazing in its pure form. In fact, the simpler the dish, the more it shines. Bengali ghee with steaming basmati rice and a pinch of salt is pure perfection.

When I visit Kolkata, ghee is one of the things I always bring back with me. Because for whatever reason, it's difficult if not impossible to find outside Bengal, let alone in other countries.

When my friend Bronwen came to visit us in Copenhagen, we fed her Bengali ghee with rice and begun bhaja. The ghee, as you would expect, blew her mind.

Bronwen lives in a village in Wales which has no Indian stores, so she said the next time her dad went to Cardiff, she would ask him to get some ghee for her. I warned her that this would almost certainly be non-Bengali ghee, but she said, "Oh it's fine, I probably can't even tell the difference."

A few weeks later she texted me saying, "My dad brought me some ghee, and what the fuck, this is completely different, nowhere near as nice!" I said I told you so.

Mustafa, a giant supermarket in Singapore which specialises in South Asian products, has two whole aisles of ghee, but no Bengali ghee.

In a way, it's annoying, not being able to find Bengali ghee in various countries that I have lived in. But a part of me is perversely pleased that Bengali ghee is such a hidden gem; a closely-guarded secret, accessible only to us. It's a complicated feeling – not easy to express, but I've tried my best: