My father was in the railways and vacations meant packing a lot of food [the kind which didn’t spoil easily] and taking a train to places like Allahabad, Varanasi, Puri and Kanyakumari,” author Sujata Shukla Rajan tells us over the phone. “He would tell us a story at every temple he took us to.” In her recent book Bhog Naivedya: Food Offerings to the Gods (Rupa Publications), which explores sacred foods served in temples across India, weaving them with mythology and history, she relates one such story. She remembers that the sand at the beach at Kanyakumari had traces of yellow, red and brown. Her father had said these were remnants of the ingredients of the wedding food the Kanyakumari Devi had thrown out in her fury at Lord Shiva who had not turned up for the wedding. “Even today, shops near the temple sell tiny stones which represent the rice, mustard, etc. that the Goddess is believed to have flung on the beach,” she writes. Her father’s mythological tales, she says, invariably featured food. “I must have unconsciously imbibed them.”

Durga Puja bhog at Kolkata’s pandals comprise pulao, sweets, vegetable and lentil curries, several varieties of bhaja (fritters) like potato and pumpkin, chutney such as from pineapple and raisins, payesh (kheer), luchi and most importantly, khichuri made of Gobindobhog rice and moong dal