In my blog here I have been sharing the food from my childhood in Bangladesh and the context and stories around them. Food back home, when I was growing up, didn’t happen in a vacuum, one didn’t just randomly eat a dish (the way I usually do now as an adult in NYC). Other than the usual staples, what we ate at any given time was usually connected to the season of the year (what was in season drove what we consumed), or there were cultural associations – such as, the Bengali new year, Eid, Ramadan (which we called “Ramzan”). Here, I am sharing the recipe for Piyaju, lentil and onion fritters which we ate during Ramadan.

During the month of Ramzan, we ate special food items that weren’t usually cooked at any other time of the year. While my dad and us kids didn’t fast, my mom, my grandmother and our help usually did, and quite a large variety of special items would be prepared daily for the whole household for Iftar (the meal when breaking the fast). The fast itself could be grueling in the summers, when temperatures would be in the mid-90F’s, and no food or water could pass one’s lips from sunrise to sundown during that month. I don’t know how people who were manual laborers did it. Sitting in an air-conditioned house made it a lot easier to handle fasting. But what I did notice during the month of Ramadan was that people around the city, random people, were a lot nicer, calmer. It seemed as if the process of fasting, along with the spiritual aspect, made the brain ignore irrelevant stupidities, not react in aggressions, but focus on what was important. People just seemed more compassionate. I would be out shopping with my mom more than normal during Ramzan – we would spend hours going from store to store, buying clothes, for our household and to give to people as gifts for Eid (the celebration that would follow the end of Ramadan). So we got to interact with a ton of random people, and oddly enough despite the heat and fasting, I remember seeing less silly petty arguments, etc. as we went around.

Because it was Ramzan and our help were fasting too, we all pitched in to prepare the food. After school, we’d sit together around the dining table, helping prep the ingredients for Iftar. I would help peel a big bowl of black chickpeas that had been soaking and softening in water for hours, or shape little patties or fritters for frying later. It was a lot of fun, doing the meal prep together.

As an adult in NY, when Ramadan comes around, what I miss the most are those afternoons together – all of us chatting, laughing, doing our bits to prepare Iftar. And then excitedly waiting for the moment of breaking the fast, when we’d join the fasting part of the household and drink the rose-scented milk, and eat the food items we had prepared together. Once in a while, during Ramadan now, I’ll make Iftar items from my childhood, and have my sister and others over. I can’t imagine doing Iftar without a group of people around the table.

One of my favorite Iftar items is Piyaju, which are lentil and onion fritters. In our household, we’d eat Piyaju only during Ramzan, but here in NYC, I see them being sold as a snack item throughout the year in the Bangladeshi food places. But their Piyaju is usually oily, so I prefer making my own, the way they’d make it in our house – light, fluffy, crunchy, and not oily. They can be quite addictive actually. The blend of flavors from the fresh ingredients like ginger, garlic, cilantro along with the crunchiness, just makes you want to eat a bunch.

Since the fritters are small in size, about the length of the pinky finger in diameter, you’ll definitely want to make a few. I tend to crave Piyaju usually during Ramadan (like now), but I do make it at random times during the year as a snack. They’re actually fairly easy to make. And totally delicious served hot, with a cup of tea. You need to plan ahead a little bit for making the piyaju, since the lentils will need to be soaked in water for 4 hours or more. Usually, I’ll soak it in the morning, if I’m planning to make piyaju as a snack in the evening. I’ve tried soaking it for 30 minutes in hot water when I didn’t plan ahead, and that still worked, although the piyaju ends up being harder to bite (soaking the dal longer softens it).

I made this batch and took some over to the Bangladeshi fruit vendor who works at a cart a block from our apartment. He fasts every day during Ramadan, while standing in the hot sun, waiting for the neighborhood Manhattanites to come by and buy some fruit. He treks here all the way from the Bronx, and I wonder how he manages to stand there for hours in the heat, not being able to eat or have even a drop of water for over 16 hours, from before 4am to after 8pm. Often when I walk by him in the evenings, he seems tired, but always has a smile on his face, and will greet me and chat. He had just broken his fast when I took these over and was happy to have fresh hot piyaju that smelled so good. As with other cart-vendors around the city, he breaks his fast on the street by his cart, not even being able to indulge in a few minutes of privacy after all those hours not eating. And if a customer comes by, he helps them, without showing any sign of annoyance. I honestly don’t think I would be able to be so gracious after 16 hours of starvation; I’d probably be so hangry! Bringing him the few piyajus was the tiniest little thing I could do, but he was so happy he insisted on gifting me some lychees. Which just made my day!