Amartya Sen at the table

At a Bengali table, you don't serve a starter, main course, and dessert: you unfold a series of small preparations around a large mound of white rice, set on a brass plate or banana leaf. The order is almost ritual — you start with the bitter (shukto) to awaken the palate, then come the dal, the fritters (bhaja), the river fish (maach), a tangy chutney, and you finish with a milk-based sweet (mishti). Each flavor has its place in the progression, from the most austere to the most tender.

Bengali mix of five whole seeds — cumin, nigella, fennel, fenugreek, and mustard seeds — thrown into hot mustard oil until it crackles. It is the very smell of a Bengali kitchen: you don't grind it, you pop it to perfume the fat before plunging in the vegetables.