IT IS safe to assume that anyone coming from Jaynagar would be carrying nolen gur (date palm jaggery), goes a local proverb. This locality in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district is known for its sweets since pre Independence days. Jaynagar moa, a sweet made of puffed rice, is even named after the place. However, nolen gur—the ingredient that gives most sweets of Jaynagar their unique flavour—has seen a fall in production in the past few years.
The jaggery is made of khejurer ros, the sap of the date palm tree, and is a delicacy unique to West Bengal. Though the tree is grown across the state, date palms in and around Jaynagar are traditionally considered to produce the best quality nolen gur. The tree secretes the sap only during the winters, November to February. Siuli, traditional workers who collect it, make cuts in the tree trunk during the day and collect the sap at night. “It is so sensitive to temperature that it begins to ferment with rise in temperature after dawn. I mark the cuts between 12:00 noon and 5:00 pm and collect the sap from 3:00 am to 8:00 am,” says Ratan Naskar, 66, a siuli who collects sap from over 100 date palms and pays ₹150 per tree per season to the owners. The process of making nolen gur, too, is completed the same day, else the sap becomes unusable. “One tree secrete 40-50 litres of sap a day, which sells at ₹200 per litre. About 7 litres of sap produces 1 litre of jaggery. I can earn about R3 lakh a season by selling it to sweet shops,” says Naskar, who has worked as a siuli for over five decades.
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