Jaggery in Bengali: গুড় (gur)
The Bengali word for jaggery, how it is said, what the powder and the palm kinds are called, and the dishes it goes into.
In short: Jaggery is called গুড় (gur) in Bengali. Jaggery powder is গুড় পাউডার (gur powder). Said "goor", with a flapped r.
The Bengali words for jaggery
| In English | In Bengali | In Latin letters |
|---|---|---|
| Jaggery | গুড় | gur |
| Jaggery powder | গুড় পাউডার | gur powder |
| Sugarcane jaggery | আখের গুড় | akher gur |
| Date palm jaggery | খেজুর গুড় | khejur gur |
| The fresh date palm jaggery of winter | নলেন গুড় | nolen gur |
| Solid date palm jaggery | পাটালি | patali |
| Liquid date palm jaggery | ঝোলা গুড় | jhola gur |
Bengali (বাংলা) is spoken in West Bengal, Tripura, the Barak valley of Assam, and Bangladesh.
Gur in the Bengali kitchen
In Bengal the gur people talk about most is not made from cane at all. খেজুর গুড় is boiled from the sap of the wild date palm, tapped on cold mornings, and its first flush is নলেন গুড় (nolen gur), which turns up in sandesh, rosogolla and payesh for a few weeks each winter.
Date palm gur comes in two forms: পাটালি (patali), set solid in discs, and ঝোলা গুড় (jhola gur), a pourable liquid. Sugarcane jaggery, the kind made across the rest of India and the kind we make, is আখের গুড় (akher gur).
What it goes into
- Gurer payesh. Rice pudding sweetened with gur.
- Nolen gurer sandesh. Fresh chhena with winter date palm jaggery.
- Pithe and puli. Rice-flour dumplings for Poush Sankranti, with coconut and gur.
- Moa. Puffed rice bound with gur.
Recipes on this site that cook with the same gur: gur ki kheer, til gur laddoo and peanut chikki. All of them are on the recipes page.
The same gur, delivered
Whatever a kitchen calls it, sugarcane jaggery is one food. Ours is made from cane grown in the Muzaffarnagar belt of Uttar Pradesh, crushed on a village kolhu and cooked in open iron kadhais with nothing added, and sent across India as a powder and as cubes.
Jaggery in other languages
- Jaggery in Hindi: गुड़ (gud or gur)
- Jaggery in Punjabi: ਗੁੜ (gur)
- Jaggery in Urdu: گڑ (gur)
- Jaggery in Marathi: गूळ (gul)
- Jaggery in Gujarati: ગોળ (gol)
- Jaggery in Bengali: গুড় (gur)
- Jaggery in Odia: ଗୁଡ଼ (guda)
- Jaggery in Assamese: গুৰ (gur)
- Jaggery in Tamil: வெல்லம் (vellam)
- Jaggery in Telugu: బెల్లం (bellam)
- Jaggery in Kannada: ಬೆಲ್ಲ (bella)
- Jaggery in Malayalam: ശർക്കര (sharkara)
Every language side by side: jaggery names in Indian languages.
Questions people ask
- What is jaggery called in Bengali?
- Jaggery is called গুড় (gur) in Bengali. It is sugarcane juice boiled down until it sets, sold as a block, as cubes or as a powder.
- What is jaggery powder called in Bengali?
- গুড় পাউডার (gur powder). It is jaggery dried a little further and ground, so that it can be spooned and measured like sugar.
- What is the difference between nolen gur and ordinary gur?
- Nolen gur is fresh date palm jaggery, made in Bengal only in winter. Ordinary gur across most of India is boiled from sugarcane juice, which in Bengali is akher gur.