It’s appropriate that my first post from India (and posting will be light after I leave Delhi on Wednesday morning) is on food: in particular, my first meal in Delhi. Here is a lovely lunch that my hosts prepared.

Here we have, clockwise from bottom left, potatoes and onions, eggplant and chilis, kebabs with shredded chicken, then the big dish of fish with vegetables, potatoes in tomato sauce, dal (lentils) and dahi vada (savory lentil pastries in a yogurt sauce).

Below are special breads, like chappatis but filled with pureed peas. We ate with our hands, of course, using rice, these breads, and puris to help us grasp the food. (I always eat Indian food with my hands, as is the national custom—right hand only!—much to the chagrin of my friends in America.

The potatoes in tomato sauce and the breads were made by a special guest, Mr. Das from Bangalore. Das, besides being a great cook, happens to own the finest commercial sweet factory in India, K. C. Das, which was first opened by by his great-grandfather Nobin Chandra Das in 1866 in Calcutta. The business is now is expanding to other towns. Nobin Das invented a very famous sweet, rasgulla: Indian “cottage-cheese” balls in a sugar syrup. His son, K. C. Das, was the first person to produce any canned food in India, and that was canned rasgulla.

Mr. Das is visiting my hosts while attending a marriage ceremony in Delhi and buying a machine to fill cups with yogurt (his company was the first in India to make fruit yogurt; most yogurt here, called “curd,” is unflavored and unsweetened).

Here is Mr. Das serving one of his specialties, sonpapri, a very complicated and addictively delicious sweet made from chickpea flour, milk, and the best ghee (clarified butter) he can find. I had never tried this food before (it, like most great Indian sweets, comes from Bengal), and decided it was the second best of all Indian sweets, the best still being ramalai (soft, cheese balls soaked in chilled, thickened milk flavored with cardamom).

The preparation of sonpapri is complicated and laborious: people have to repeatedly stretch and fold the dough to get the right texture, and must keep the milk and ghee mixture at the proper cold temperature. The result, when prepared properly is a delicious flaky sweet (like a mixture of fudge and shredded wheat) that is, as the Brits say, “moreish”. Das takes care not to make his sweets too sweet so as not to overwhelm the flavor of the ghee and other ingredients. Here’s a picture of sonpapri from his firm’s website:

Mr. Das also brought his company’s sandesh, a milk-flavored sweet with the texture of firm fudge. His list of products is here (he was also the first person to manufacture non-sugar confections for diabetics; Indians do love their sweets).

Other sweets from K. C. Das are shown below, including barfi (milk fudge covered with slivered pistachios and silver foil (yes, real silver),as well as an unidentified sweet to the right)

Mr. Das, besides running a great business, also has forty cats! They live in his house, most have names, and, although he is a vegetarian, Das prepares their food (fish and chicken on alternate days) himself, as his cooks are South Indian and won’t handle fish or meat. He loves his cats, some of which remain stationary in various places (one lives atop the washing machine), and has special staff to clean up after them. The stationary cats must have their food brought to them!

On Wednesday morning early (a 6 a.m. flight!), we travel to Calcutta, the home of Indian culture and Bengali food, including, of course, sweets. This is one Indian city I’ve never visited.