MANIKGANJ, Dec 23, 2019 (BSS) – Traditional and seasonal delicious steamed
rice cake locally called “Bhapa pitha” draws huge public attention, enticing
them to have this mouth-watering winter food along with bringing boons for
the occasional poor cake-makers here.
Hundreds of seasonal “Bhapa pitha” makers are bustling with customers
erecting makeshift enterprises beside road, village markets, bus stands,
ferry ghats even by the side of playgrounds and tea-stalls.
“Bhapa pitha” having been a delicate winter food, a lot of people throng
those temporary pitha shops and purchase. Besides, being a low-cost food
item, it has been consumed abundantly.
Khorshed Ali, (40) a Bhapa pitha maker, at Manikganj bus-stand said some
bus passengers before getting on bus early in the morning like to have one or
two “Bhapa pitha” as their breakfast. So he opens his temporary ‘pitha shop’
at dawn.
He said he earns at least Tk. 400-500 per day.
Rahima khatun, (30) who runs his “pitha shop” at Barangail bazzar said her
husband Khalek buys the ingredients of cake — rice, molasses and coconuts —
from market and their earnings from selling pitha is pretty good.
A middle aged woman customer told this correspondent that she herself and
her family members like very much coconut mixing ‘Bhapa pitha’. But there is
no scope of making it at home. So they buy it from the market especially in
the winter. Some time they entertain their guests with ‘Bhapa pitha’ buying
from market.
When visited some remote rural areas of the district, this correspondent
also found that a large number of poor people both male and female are
engaged in making “Bhapa pitha”.
“Bhapa pitha” is a seasonal stream cake that generally made in the winter
season. It is tasty and popular to both the rural and urban people in the
district. “Bhapa pitha” needs some flour of rice, molasses, and coconut to be
made.
Cake makers first put some rice floor in a small round pot. Then they place
some coconut and molasses and again put some floor over it. After that, the
whole filling is shrouded by a rag and put it over a pierced lid of a pot
filled with water which is placed on stove. The water is boiled by heat and
its steam comes out of the hole of the lid which helps make bhapa pitha.