Bhubaneswar: Odia people love their cuisine especially Pakhala, which is made by fermenting rice. ‘Pakhala’ is one of the best summer dishes that help ‘beat the heat.’ To promote the cuisine in modern era, ‘Pakhala Divas’ is celebrated on March 20 every year. The initiative started on 2015 by Odias to celebrate their traditional food worldwide.
Pakhala is the Odia term for an Indian dish consisting of cooked rice that is lightly fermented in water. The water of the dish is called ‘Torani’. In order to make the traditional Odia dish more delicious curd, cucumber, cumin seeds, fried onions and curry leaves are also added to the fermented rice.
Mostly, people prefer to eat it with side dishes such as aloo bhaja, fried brinjal (baigana bhaja), fried and crushed badi (badi churaa), saga bhajaa, fish fry (maaccha bhaja) or fried pumpkin flowers (kakharu phula bhaja).
There are many classifications of this dish such as Jeera Pakhala, Dahi Pakhala, Garama Pakhala and Basi Pakhala. Due to fermentation of rice, when one eats Pakhala, that person feels sleep and even have a good sleep.
Pakhala is not only popular in Odisha but neighbouring states such as West Bengal, Jharkhand, Assam, Chhattisgarh, and Tamil Nadu have also added it in their cuisine. However, they all have different names for it. Where in West Bengal it is called ‘Panta bhat,’ people in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh call it ‘Paani Bhat.’ Similarly, in Assam it is known as ‘Poita Bhat’ and in Tamil Nadu it is called ‘Pazhaya Sadam.’
To celebrate the day dedicated to popular Odia cuisine, internationally acclaimed sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik has created a sand sculpture on Puri beach to mark the occasion.
Today is #PakhalaDibasa, a day dedicated for the unique #Odia delicacy- PAKHALA. One of My SandArt . pic.twitter.com/XrHoRjZ5tk
— Sudarsan Pattnaik (@sudarsansand) March 20, 2024
Ms Kalinga