Bengali sweets: the six to try and the shops that matter

Bengal's sweets are milk-based rather than syrup-soaked, which makes them the lightest in India and the easiest to eat several of.

Rosogolla is the famous one — cottage cheese balls in light syrup — and the argument about who invented it will outlive everyone involved. Eat it fresh; a rosogolla that has sat overnight is a different and lesser thing.

Sandesh is the connoisseur's choice and the one that shows a shop's quality fastest. It is barely sweetened, made from fresh chhena, and the good versions taste of milk rather than sugar. A shop whose sandesh is excellent is a shop you can trust with anything.

Mishti doi — sweet set yoghurt, served in a terracotta pot — is the correct end to any Bengali meal, and the pot matters: it draws out moisture and thickens the yoghurt in a way plastic cannot.

Then the seasonal ones. Between roughly December and February, nolen gur — fresh date-palm jaggery — arrives, and every sweet in the city is remade with it. Nolen gur sandesh and nolen gur rosogolla are, for those eight weeks, the best sweets in India. Planning a winter visit around them is not an unreasonable thing to do.

Buy from the neighbourhood shops with a queue rather than the airport counters. Bengali sweets do not travel well and are made to be eaten the day they are made — which is the whole reason they are this good.