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how Chittagonians acquired a foreign taste
|| Mostafa Yousuf ||
Out of clay ovens and into Gani Bakery packaging, a bunch of Bela biscuits sit atop a counter, ready to go into buyers’ kitchen cabinets. Below, the storefront of Gani Bakery reads “We Have No Branches”, as if to drive home its uniqueness.
Photo: RAJIB RAIHAN
There’s a biscuit for every hour of the day. We start the morning dipping toast biscuits in tea, we go into midday on savory biscuits, and munch on low-cal crackers when on diet. These little blocks of delight have become such a regular feature of our lives that it’s hard to realise that they aren’t actually native to our land, but foreign imports from our colonised past.
Our biscuits, cake and bread were originally a part of Portuguese and Mughal food habits. When they settled in this region, they brought this part of their culture to cater to their needs.
According to historians, bakery industries kicked off in Chattogram after people of the then British India’s Bardhaman district migrated to this land at the end of the Mughal era.
Of the many varieties of biscuits these bakers made here, a new genre completely matched locals’ taste. This is the legendary Bela biscuit, a trademark of Chittagonian food culture. Today, its renown matches even that of the ultra-popular Mejban dish.
The pioneer of the Bela biscuit in Chattogram is Gani Bakery, which laid the foundation of the unique snack and earned prominence in producing it across the port city.
Exactly when Gani Bakery started baking Bela biscuits is not known, but researchers of Chattogram believe Kha Subedar and his son Kanu Kha introduced the snack to locals.
Ahmed Mamtaj, assistant director of Bangla Academy, researched on Gani Bakery as an important part of Chattogram’s lore. He told The Daily Star that Lak Kha Subedar and his relatives, who knew how to make the bakery items, were brought into the area by Mughals who settled here around 1664.
The bakery industry flourished after the Mughals conquered Chattogram. Not just bakery, food items like vermicelli and polao were also introduced to this region by the Mughals, Ahmed Mamtaj said.
According to the researcher, Bela biscuit was an experimental byproduct of the process of making key bakery items.
“The Bela biscuit fit right in to the taste palette of Chittagonians, which helped it gain popularity among our people,” he added.
GANI BAKERY
In 2020, Gani Bakery stands as a one-storey structure located at the port city’s Chandanpura area, just hundred yards away from Chattogram College. However, its journey started more than a hundred years ago.
Abdul Gani Soudagor, the man who put the “Gani” in the bakery’s name, got into the industry way back in 1878, at the young age of 10. He died in 1973, aged 105. In this lifetime, he elevated both his bakery and the Bela biscuit to prominence.
Of his many tales, of particular note is the story of his role during the World War 2. During the war, Abdul Gani made a huge fortune after an Australian brigadier contracted Gani Bakery to supply them with baked goods. The snacks were consumed by the allied forces all across the region, even in the then Burma.
After his death, his nephew Danu Soudagor took the helm. He handed the bakery down to his son Jamal Uddin, who died in 1987. After the death of Jamal, the bakery is now run by his son Abdullah Mohammed Ehtesam.
HOW THE CRUNCHY DELIGHT IS MADE
To preserve the legend of the Bela biscuit, Gani Bakery still resorts to large clay ovens to bake the dough instead of electric ovens and adds a unique liquid ingredient to keep the biscuit’s taste unharmed, current owner Ehtesam told this to The Daily Star during a recent visit.
This is a “quality over quantity” strategy adopted by the bakery.
It takes two days from beginning to end to bake the snacks, although it would take only 24 hours in electric ovens.
A secret liquid syrup is added to sugar, salt, milk powder and vegetable oil to make the dough that goes into the clay oven.
After 48 hours, round and crispy Bela biscuits make their way to the shelves of the bakery, to be bought by buyers who cannot get enough of it, Ehtesam said.
Besides Gani Bakery there are a few more companies that bake Bela biscuits, with big names such as Well Food, Flavors, Ispahani and Pran group are among them.
After satisfying Chattogram and the rest of the country, the biscuit is now being exported to many countries, including Australia, Canada, the USA and the UK.