It's been a while since I talked about products from the great India Bazaar grocery store, so here we are. Today's topic is several treats from India's next door neighbor, Bangladesh. Specifically, the barbecue and hot flavors of chanachur from the Square Food & Beverage, Limited company, and the cake rusk from the food division of the Well Group.
Chanachur is a type of Indian snack mix. It goes by many names. Some alternate examples are chiuda, bhuso, baramaza, chuda, Punjabi Mix, and Bombay Mix, depending on what country it's being served. There are also regional variations with its ingredients, but some of the more common ones are peanuts, fried lentils, corn, chickpea, fried onion, curry leaves, and different spices. Chanachur is the name of this food type in Bangladesh, as you might expect.
Cake rusk is a basic yellow cake that's been baked twice. In this way the title is a bit misleading. I've talked about several kinds of European style rusk before, in my posts about zwieback (April 13, 2019), Brazilian toast (May 11, 2019), and Finnish flatbread (November 3, 2018). But those are only similar to cake rusk in that they've been baked twice. Classic European rusks are very dry, hard, and with a bread-y taste, while cake rusk is much less dry and hard in texture, and is a sweet dessert, like cakes usually are.
Square Food & Beverage, Ltd., is the food division of the overall Square Group. The food portion has only existed since 2000. It consists of four brands. Radhuni, their flagship brand, is ready mixes, spices, pulses, cereals, and edible oils. Ruchi is the snack division, and is more marketed toward youths. Chashi is fresh foods received directly from farmers. And the Chopstick brand is the instant noodle line. The Square Group was started in 1958 by Samson H. Chowdhury, along with his co-investors Dr. Kazi Harunur Rishid, Dr. PK Shaha, and Radha Binod Roy. This company is huge, boasting of a workforce of 36,000 people, and having annual sales of $800,000,000 (converted to U.S. dollars). The Square Group also produces pharmaceuticals, textiles, consumer goods, toiletries, herbal medicines, agrovet products/pesticides, information technology, hospitals, and even a television channel. I was also surprised to learn from his personal website that Mr. Chowdhury participated in a naval mutiny against the British colonial rulers in 1946, for which he was arrested, briefly jailed, and then sent to a concentration camp for a while.
The Well Group is slightly younger, existing since 1973. Its founders were Abdus Salam and Professor Nurul Bari Chowdhury (I don't know if he's a relative of Square Group's Samson Chowdhury, or it's just a coincidence). Well began as a textile company, but has since diversified into hotels, real estate, and food--mostly baked goods like cakes, cookies, breads, pastries, sweets, and snacks. The company employs over 18,000 workers, and has an annual revenue of $100,000,000 (again, converted to U.S. dollars). The Well Group is also active in social welfare charities, as they grant funds for irrigation, books for school children, free meals to the impoverished, and to plant trees.
Square Food & Beverages, Ruchi chanachur, Bar-B-Q flavor: Reminded me of a version of trail mix, only more savory. Consisted of yellow pea, rice flakes, peanuts, and various spices, with the rice being in the form of orange, hard noodles. Rather messy to eat. Pretty good in taste. The barbecue flavor was evident, and built in spice intensity as I ate it. So overall a solid snack, but not awesome.
Square Food & Beverages, Ruchi chanachur, hot flavor: Looked similar to the previous kind, with peanuts, hard noodles, and twisty puff chunks, with an orange color. As with the barbecue kind, only more so, the spice heat built up slowly, and then got intense. Decent, but not spectacular. Because of the high spiciness I finished up the bag by mixing it with the barbecue kind, to cut the heat a bit. Also, later on I experienced some stomach upset--evidently I ate too much at one time, and my system couldn't handle the spiciness that well.
Well Food Group, cake rusk: This looked like a loaf of bread, with pre-cut slices that were about 8 cm. by 4 cm. (about 3.75 inches by 1.75 inches), with an orange-yellowish color, and a brown crust. The taste was like a pound cake, nicely sweet. Very heavy and dense, but not crunchy and dry like European rusk. I enjoyed this--a quality dessert.
Moving on, I thought I'd highlight some famous people from Bangladesh, or at least those with some Bangladeshi heritage. First off, Hiralal Sen, born in what is now Bangladesh, is considered one of the founders of Indian cinema. Staying in film, Afshan Azad acted in five of the "Harry Potter" movies. She was born in England, but is of Bangladeshi descent. One of the members of the controversial comedy troupe "The Jerky Boys," known for their prank phone calls, is Bangladeshi-American--Kamal Ahmed. In the world of music, Abdul "Duke" Fakir is American born, of Bangladeshi/Ethiopian descent. He was one of the "Four Tops," who were a hugely successful singing group, and who are members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jawed Karim was born in Germany, to a Bangladeshi father, and later became an American. He's one of the founders of YouTube, and was also a technical architect of PayPal. And finally there's Muhammad Yunus, who was born in Bangladesh and has spent his life there. He's an economist, banker, and civil society leader, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his "village back" system of microcredit. He was also given the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Congressional Gold medal, among his other accolades from around the world.
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