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Thali

Next: 16 to 21 Oct 2026

Durga Puja

Bengal eats khichuri bhog at the pandal by day and street food by night.

Durga Puja, also called Durgotsava, is an annual Hindu festival in the Indian subcontinent that reveres the goddess Durga. It is particularly popular in West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Assam, Tripura, Bangladesh a
Photo: Subhrajyoti07, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What is eaten for Durga Puja

Durga Puja is the great festival of Bengal, when the goddess is said to visit her parents' home with her children. Unlike the fasts kept elsewhere, it is a time of feasting. At midday the pandals serve bhog, food first offered to the goddess: khichuri of rice and lentils, a mixed vegetable dish, fried aubergine, tomato chutney and payesh. In the evenings people walk from pandal to pandal eating rolls, cutlets and sweets. On the last day married women feed each other sweets before the goddess leaves.

The dishes

KhichdiKhichuri, the rice and lentil dish served as bhog.KheerPayesh, the rice pudding that ends the bhog.SandeshFresh cheese sweet shared on the last day.RasgullaSyrup-soaked cheese balls.Mishti doiSweet set yoghurt.

Also part of it, and being written: Luchi (Fried white flour bread for festival mornings.), Kati roll (The street food of pandal hopping in Kolkata.).

More dishes made for Durga Puja

ChomchomVegetarianচমচম 🇧🇩 Bangladesh and 1 moreBengali sweet made from chhena, often coated with coconut or mawa flakes Sweet or dessert
About this page

Written by the Thali desk with AI assistance. Background: "Durga Puja" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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