Sarsatia

Sarsatia is a fried sweet of layered fine threads, made in Sambalpur in western Odisha. The thin, interlaced lines form a light mesh that crumbles crisply when bitten. Its sweetness is gentle; it is eaten soaked in milk or kheer, and some people serve it alongside meat curry.

A mesh born of branch liquid and rice

The most striking of its ingredients is a sticky liquid obtained from the twigs of a tree called ganjhir, or ganjer. The twigs are gathered, washed and soaked in water, and the substances that seep out are strained. This liquid is combined with raw rice flour and sugar to make the batter. Rather than cutting wheat noodles into thin strands, the fine lines are formed in the oil from a rice batter thin enough to flow.

Methods vary. In one local recipe, the outer layer of the branches is peeled off and they are soaked in water for several days, and the liquid that has turned sticky is used. The rice is soaked, drained and dried before being ground into flour. When the batter is poured into a ladle with holes and swirled over hot oil, the thin strands overlap in two or three layers. Once colored, it is lifted out of the oil and becomes a crisp mesh as it cools. In another recipe introduced by an Odisha cooking oil manufacturer, no branch liquid is used; rice flour is mixed with water, fried into thin strands, and then dipped in syrup.

The tools also differ from maker to maker. Sambalpur artisan Prabhulal Gupta says he soaks the branches in water overnight, and describes a method of putting his hand into the sticky batter and spreading it into the oil. Another artisan, Narendra Nath Sahu, grinds raw rice called arua into flour with a wooden pounding tool called a dhenki, and says that getting the liquid out of the branches just right is essential. Both are handcrafts that fry ground rice into fine lines.

From the hills to the shop

Making the sweet begins with heading into the hills to get the branches. A 2016 report on Sahu’s shop conveys local accounts of gathering twigs in the Barapahar hills, and of the branches becoming harder to obtain and their price rising. In the case of Gupta’s family, they reportedly set out early in the morning for the forest beyond Rengali, return in the evening, wash the branches and soak them in water.

From family to festival

Sahu says his grandfather learned how to make it from a couple in the neighborhood and passed it on to his father. Gupta, too, has kept the shop going with his family, making the sweet throughout the day starting in the morning. He says that for the Nuakhai celebration, the shop has even delivered it as an offering to the goddess Samaleswari. Another report also records it as a sweet offered during the Dussehra season. The fine rice mesh is served at home breakfasts and celebrations, and is also offered at the temple.

Accounts of the age of the shops and the origins of the sweet vary, ranging from over a hundred years ago to several hundred years ago. Shop histories passed down through families are valuable clues, but when the sweet was born and who first made it remain uncertain.

Glossary