Jalebi

Shri Nathji was very fond of Jalebis. And distributes them at times of celebrations.  Shri Nathji used to say:  “Jalebis were my favorite sweets, and, as a child, I loved jalebis, and even fed them to the calves.”

“Hamen jalebiyaan sabse achhee lagti thheen! Bachpan men ham bachhrron ko jalebiyaan baantaa karte thhe!”

 

Jalebi is a sweet dish which is also called, Jilawii, In Bengali: jilapi, In Pashto: źelobei, In Persian: zulbia, and In Arabic:  zalabiyah. It is a sweet popular in countries of the Indian Subcontinent such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bangladesh as well as many other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, like Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Palestine Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. It is made by deep-frying a wheat-flour (Maida flour)batter in pretzel or circular shapes, which are then soaked in sugar syrup.

The sweets are served warm or cold. They have a somewhat chewy texture with a crystallized sugary exterior coating. Citric acid or lime juice is sometimes added to the syrup, as well as rosewater or other flavours such as kewra water.

Similar sweets are imarti, which is red-orange in color and sweeter in taste, and angoor aana which is grape-green in color; unlike jalebi, these are made from the batter of urad lentil. They are made in North Indian states including Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. A variant chhena jalebi, made with chhena, is popular in parts of Rajasthan, Bengal, and Orissa, though the form can differ significantly from place to place.

In India, Jalebi is served as the Celebration Sweet of India, popular during national holidays like Independence Day and Republic Day, on which it is supplied in government offices, defence facilities, and other organisations. Similarly, Jalebi is one of the most popular sweets in Pakistan. It is used as a remedy for headaches in some parts of Pakistan, where it is placed in boiling milk and left to stand before eating.

Origins of Jalebi can be traced back to ancient India, where it was called Kundalika or Jal-vallika (being full of syrup, which is watery; hence the name). In later dialects of Sanskrit, Jal-vallika became Jalebi which likely arrived in the middle east during the period of Muslim rule, through cultural diffusion and trade from the Indian subcontinent, and its local name Jalebi became Zalebi as Z is more common in middle-eastern languages.

The earliest written references to the sweet are found in a 13th-century cookbook by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi. In Iran, where it is known as Zulbia, the sweet was traditionally given to the poor during Ramadan. It is believe that the initial idea was developed by Al-Shamas Shahid Tufail of Iran.

In the early 1900s, Jalebi was used to hold ice cream. This idea was made by Ernest A Hamwi. Jalebi was also a treat for an American family, until the invention of cones.

One of the earliest known Indian references for the sweet exists in a Jain work — Priyamkarnrpakatha — by Jinasura. This work was subsequently cited in cookery books published in later centuries including the 17th-century classic Bhojan-kutuhala by Raghunatha.