Have A Bite Of This Western Odisha’s Rare Crunchy Dessert Called ‘Sarsatia’

Bhubaneswar: Odisha is known as the land of timeless cuisines and especially for its sweet delicacies. Everyone knows about Kendrapara’s famous Rasabali, Salipur’s Rasagola and Nimapada’s Chena Jhilli but what about Western Odisha?

Do you know? One of the sweet delicacies is Sarsatia, which is a mildly sweet, made by a lot of local homes in Sambalpur until a few decades ago.

Sarasatia is a crispy sweet resembling vermicelli. What makes it trendy is that it is made from a tree named Ganjer.

Prabhulal Gupta, a maker of the delicacy from Sambalpur, owns a shop which is around 200 years old. The shop was launched by his great grandfather Beni Madhav Halwai.

The sweet dish is prepared from the resin of twigs. First, the tree is scraped and its twigs are soaked in water overnight.

From this, a sweet resin condenses which is mixed with raw rice powder, sugar and fried in the shape of vermicelli in oil. The people of Sambalpur have it for breakfast.

Earlier, the trees were cheaper, but nowadays the twigs of the tree cost around Rs 300 to Rs 400. Commercially it is available in only three sweet shops, all located in close proximity at ‘Badsadak’, an ancient lane of this old town.

Sarsatia was once a common sweet dish, prepared in the homes of Sambalpur, especially during festivals like PuaJiuntia, Bhai Jiuntia and  Puspuni.

Now due to availability of a variety of other options in sweets, and the tedious process involved in making the Sarsatias, it has become a rarity. But whoever has tasted this lip-smacking delicacy even once is sure to remember its taste for a long time to come. Sarsatia sure is a gastronomer’s delight.

You might also like

Comments are closed.