Bengalis are forever bound to engage in friendly rivalries. Mohun Bagan or East Bengal? Digha or Darjeeling? Ilish or Chingri? It is only fair that it’ll get handed down to our love for sweets as well. Norom paak or Kora paak sondesh is a tough one to choose between. On the one hand we have our favoured kalakand which is good to have in your fridge or without, is nice to have at any time of day, month or week, and can be served up as offerings in our year-round festivities. But then again, we have our kanchagolla, taalshaash and jolbhora which is beyond comparison, and every winter it is almost customary to have these sondesh once it hits the sweet shops. So, which one would it be? Is there even a clear winner here? Let’s have a look at the fundamental differences, how they’re both made, what are the different varieties of sondesh that come under the two umbrellas and ultimately, it’ll be upto you to decide which is the best sondesh that’ll suit your taste buds.
From the outset, let’s clear out the obvious differences, kora paak is the more solid, harder mould of sondesh and it comes packed with a heavier, sweeter taste whereas, the norom paak er sondesh is lighter, more subtle and not too sweet, but it can go bad relatively quicker compared to its counterpart.
Preparing kora paak er sondesh requires the use of whole milk, khoya or mawa, and dried milk powder along with sugar, and it takes hours of cooking in an open pan to ensure most of the moisture gets removed during the process and final product comes out dense and packed with dairy goodness. The texture is grainy and once it is cooled and set, then it is cut into smaller fudge sized pieces. In some of the kora paak er sondesh, the end product has an initial bite to it, after which it pulverizes inside your mouth. In others, the sondesh would be crumbly and sticky to the touch because of the high sugar content.
Norom paak er sondesh is made out of cottage cheese that has been kneaded and then cooked with flavouring ingredients. The constant kneading by the moyra or the sweet artisans helps in breaking down the paneer or the cottage cheese into a melt in your mouth consistency and ensures that the sondesh is lump free and smooth in texture. The kneaded cheese is then transferred into large pans where it is flavoured with either sugar, jaggery, fruit pulp or chocolate and with spices like cardamom powder. The cheese is only cooked for a few minutes, just to let all the flavourings get distributed evenly. It is not stripped too much of its moisture content, like a kora paak er sondesh would. Then the cheese mixture is either shaped by hand or put in various moulds to give them their unique shapes, the way we’ve seen them displayed in sweet shops.
In weddings or other celebratory events, the norom paak er sondesh is preferred for its luxurious decadence, but in our day-to-day, the kora paak er sondesh is more sustainable because it doesn’t expire that easily. So, for offering the sweets up as prasad to deities, or just to have some in the refrigerator for when guests come unannounced, or to satisfy the sudden sugar-pangs of a Bengali, kora paak er sondesh is hands down the answer to all of those scenarios. Regardless of their viability, both kinds of sondesh will always have a special place in a Bengali’s heart and neither of the two could topple the other out of the picture completely. Nothing can be too sweet for a Bengali, and if you’d make us choose between the two, we’d happily choose both.