Anand Bazaar

At Anant Basudev mandir 

My first taste of Odia food was in the Lingaraj mandir where we ate a steaming hot Mahaprasad in the spaces between temples on the centuries old stone floor squatted and served on a patravali. The flavours were amazing! It had santula, dalma, Besara, pachadi, khata, kheer and heap of rice! All for a princely ₹100. I was stuffed to the gills.

This tradition is seen all over Odisha of feeding the pilgrims at a small cost. The food is cooked by the poojaris. Only ghee is used for cooking. All food is cooked in earthen pots that are used only once and then discarded. The technique of cooking is simple. They stack seven pots one above the other in descending size. All this over wood fire. The ingredients are mixed and pots never stirred. The years of experience makes them experts at the flavours and technique. I was fortunate to see the kitchen fully functional at the Anant Basudev temple however I felt the space to be very vulnerable. It would have made great pictures but I chose to respect the rhythm of that space and its sanctity. 

The pictures I share here are from the Anand Bazaar at the temple. It’s a system that Adi Shankaracharya started in Jagannath Puri and is emulated across all temples across Odisha.

We bought some kheer to taste as we had already had Mahaprasad at Lingaraj. That’s Saswati @saswati_gypsytraveller posing for me. Odia kheer is semi sweet and delicious!

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