Warming up in Winter With Pithas

The descending fog never fails to merge with the delicious steam wafting from plates of pithas, a winter favourite in Bangladesh. Come the chill, street corners transform into tiny food courts, offering the best of pithas, a type of rice cake. Traditional favourites such as chitoi pitha, dudh puli, tel er pitha, bhapa, patishapta and many others are sold for affordable prices. Where once, homemakers began toiling over creating the delicacies, nowadays city dwellers can go absolutely anywhere for their fill of this tasty treat. Streets in Shahbagh, Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Farmgate and in front of Bashundhara City all offer pithas. Available in both sweet and sour flavours, with helpings of milk, coconut, jaggery, shutki and a lot of other ingredients, it's hard not to have a favourite when it comes to pithas. Winter and pitha are synonymous in Bangladesh.  

Photo: Anisur Rahman