Mysore:

Break a small piece, put it into your mouth and wait for it to melt… the three simple steps to savouring the world famous ‘Mysore Pak’.

The sweet dish was first prepared in the royal kitchen of Mysore Palace during the regime of Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV. It stole the hearts of the royals then and continues to be the preferred take-home sweet for every visitor who comes to the heritage city.

Shivananda S, owner of a premium sweet store which has been serving the traditional sweet for 90 years, says the royal sweet has not lost its ground though it is almost a century old. People still prefer it the way they used to in the previous decades.

The sweet dish is prepared by adding generous amounts of ghee, sugar and gram flour. Many people buy it in large quantities during festivals and functions. But there is no season in the year when Mysore pak is sold any less. The demand remains the same throughout the year.

Shishir M, a student, who was seen buying the sweet, said: “We received guests from Udupi and they wanted to taste the speciality of the city. So I am here buying Mysore pak.” He got two kg of the sweet packed separately for the guests to take back to Udupi.

Sweet shops prepare a variety of Mysore pak including special Mysore pak, butter Mysore and ordinary Mysore pak.

Ashish Gupta of Bombay Tiffanys Annex shop on Devaraj Urs Road reveals that most of the time it is North Indians who buy Mysore pak from his shop. The demand increases during Dasara. “On a normal day, we sell about 50kg of the sweet. But during Dasara it goes up to 70kg. We also have customers who buy the sweet in large quantities and send it to their friends abroad,” he added.

The first sweet

The royal sweet was prepared in the palace kitchen by then cook Kakasura Madappa. Legend has it that the cook prepared a mixture of besan, ghee and sugar to prepare a new kind of sweet. The sweet that emerged delighted the royalty. When asked what it was called, Madappa did not have a name for it, so he simply called it ‘Mysore pak’. The name stayed and the sweet became the ‘Royal Sweet’. Later, his son Basavanna opened ‘Guru Sweets’ on Sayyaji Rao Road, which has been serving the authentic Mysore pak for the last nine decades. Shivananda S, who is the fourth generation of the family, says: “We still follow the same recipe our ancestors followed and use the same ingredients,” he said.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / Home> City> Mysore / by Yashaswini S N, TNN / August 06th, 2012