Celebration time for Odisha at last! There was a time when Odisha and West Bengal were fighting over the issue of the Indian sweet rasagulla’s birthplace. For Odisha, rasagulla had originated in their state and for West Bengal, rasagulla ids a purely Bengali sweet with its origin in the state. Amidst the debate, West Bengal had won the GI tag for its rasagulla. Now it is the turn for Odisha to celebrate its sweet victory as the “Odisha Rasagola" too has won the geographical indicator (GI) tag finally.
The formal certification of GI tag for the Odisha made rasagola was declared on Monday by the Chennai based GI Registry on its website.
However, the much debated question of whether the GI tag refers to the origin of the place, needs to be cleared here. The tag does not mean that the particular thing or product had originated in the place. Rather it signifies the particular good quality of the product grown in the particular state. Now, the GI tag being provided to the sweets made in both the states, this is clear that both the states excel in making top quality rasagullas in terms of its taste and texture.
The submission before the GI registrar states, “Odisha Rasagola is very soft to feel, juicy and non-chewy in consistency and can be swallowed without teeth pressure. The rasogolla/rasgulla prepared in other places is circular in shape, milk white in colour and basically spongy and chewy in consistency."
When it comes to finding the origin of the sweet, Odia culture scholar Asit Mohanty had found certain evidences that was good enough to be convinced that the sweet had originated in the state. He had found that the word Rasagola was written in the 15th Century Odia Dandi Ramayan which was written by the famous poet of the medieval age Balaram Das. Some other Odia and Sanskrit texts were also mentioned by the scholar that proved that chhena or cottage cheese was used by the Indians much before the French and Portuguese’s arrival in India.