Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network

Host: Sarthakie Barua
Guest: Dr. Ishita Dey
Episode: Sweet Excess: Crafting Mishti in Bengal (Routledge, 2025)
Date: January 21, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Ishita Dey, sociologist and author of Sweet Excess: Crafting Mishti in Bengal. The discussion delves into why Bengalis—across the famine-scarred geographies of West Bengal and Bangladesh—are culturally preoccupied with sugar-laden sweets (“mishti”). Dr. Dey’s research draws on ten years of immersive fieldwork, archival inquiry, and sensory ethnography, exploring mishti’s material construction, its social and symbolic meanings, and the intricate intersections of caste, religion, law, and labor in sweet-making. She frames mishti not as a mere luxury, but as a locally meaningful “excess” that both transcends and problematizes the line between necessity and indulgence.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Motivation for Research

(03:04–08:13)

• Dr. Dey’s inquiry was initially inspired by Michael Krondl’s work, but focused on the underexplored area of labor in mishti-crafting.

• Early fieldwork revealed gaps in how the term "moira" (confectioner) functions across religious and caste contexts, particularly after Partition.

• Notable shifts in her research question occurred when everyday practices of consuming and gifting sweets in Bangladesh revealed deeper cultural meanings:

  “I had to also socialize myself in the way in which people consume sweets in Dhaka...How is it that in a geography ravaged by famine, there's a certain obsession with sweetness that we carry? And who carries that obsession?”
  — Dr. Ishita Dey (07:30)

2. Conceptualizing "Excess" Rather Than "Luxury"

(09:04–17:26)

• Dr. Dey’s analytical tool is “excess”—distinct from luxury, it frames mishti as a culturally necessary surplus, present in all social registers from the cheapest to the most extravagant varieties.

• She identifies three registers of excess:

  • Cultural: Sweetness as integral to celebration, ritual, and even mourning.
  • Aestheticization: Innovation and visual display in sweets, responding to evolving tastes.
  • "Sustenant" Tropes: For example, the emergence of “diabetic sweets” to ensure nobody is deprived of sweetness.

• The framework allows her to examine how mishti adapts to and reflects social and economic changes, e.g., shifting state policies (mishti shops as “essential” vs. “non-essential”) and evolving supply chains.

  “Excess allows us to understand the cultural landscape of sweetness, both in its material embeddedness of life...In every culture, it could be different food items.”
  — Dr. Ishita Dey (13:30)

3. Methods: Mapping Sweets, Sites, and Sources

(18:40–30:39)

• Dr. Dey’s research combined extended fieldwork (2010–2019) from core urban centers (Kolkata/Dhaka) to peripheral districts (e.g., Hooghly, Krishnanagar, and Rajshahi division in Bangladesh).
• She used participant observation in sweet shops, archival work (including Modak caste association newsletters), and interviews with confectioners across religious and caste lines.
• Explored regional variations in sweets, for example, the distinctive role of “pitha ghor” (pitha shops) in Bangladesh, revealing both cultural continuity and local innovations.

4. Defining "Mishti" and Differentiation From Dessert

(31:28–39:23)

• Mishti is not just a dessert but a potential meal, and its forms are diverse—chana, khoa, rice and pulse-based varieties.

• Bangladeshi and West Bengali mishti are materially distinct from western desserts; e.g. mishti can involve fermentation, seasonal ingredients like nolen gur (date-palm jaggery), and complex aesthetic traditions (use of wooden molds, pyramid displays).

• Naming conventions, occasions, and even the choice of sweetening agent contribute to mishti’s identity.

  “Mishti can be a meal in itself. The primary ingredient... has been milk and milk bases, also various grains.”
  — Dr. Ishita Dey (31:32)

5. Caste, Religion, Labor: The Crafting of Sweetness

(39:23–56:04)

• Question of who gets recognized as a “moira”: in West Bengal, a caste-based artisanal identity (Modaks/Moiras); in Bangladesh, these terms lose explicit caste meaning but are replaced with “Ghosh”, still linked to sweet-making.

• Not all sweet shop owners are from traditional confectioner castes, but lineage is publicly celebrated in many old shops.

• Worker hierarchies persist—“karigars” (West Bengal) and “ustads” (Bangladesh), titles that take years to earn and which signal both skill and status. Many workers are hired through informal, kinship-based (often caste-linked) networks.

• The expansion of sweet-making beyond strictly defined caste lines coexists with resistance to fully severing the link between caste and craft.

  “Despite the diversification of the profession of sweet making... there is both a mythic celebration of this Ghosh and the Moira, as well as... critical distance with this caste baggage.”
  — Dr. Ishita Dey (49:39)

  “Skill, labor, and hierarchies which are deeply rooted in caste and religion sort of get enmeshed and that is how sweetness is produced in those intersections.”
  — Sarthakie Barua (54:18)

6. Mishti as Social and Ritual Exchange

(56:35–63:05)

• Sweets are ubiquitous in gift-exchange rituals—school exam results, New Year, weddings, and more, cutting across religions.

• Commercial innovations (e.g. Cadbury’s “mishti” campaigns, sweetening agent substitutions) extend and remix these rituals.

• Mishti's value is not merely culinary but also social, as carriers of celebration, consolation, and status.

  “One of the peak sales for sweet shops in Bangladesh: the day of school leaving examination results... The Bengali New Year is another... Sweets are supposed to bring in good news, bad news, right?”
  — Dr. Ishita Dey (57:45)

7. The State, Legal Registers, and Standardization

(63:05–77:50)

• Dr. Dey treats mishti’s biography as including regulation, standardization, and legal authorship.

• Debates over GI (Geographical Indication) status reveal how sweets are linked to questions of origin, place, migration, and artisanal identity.

• Regulatory efforts (e.g. 1960s milk control orders) sought to curb sweet production to reserve milk for “essential” purposes, sparking backlash from sweet shops—who defended their integral cultural role.

• Today, commercial branding often overtakes memory of individual artisans, even as artisan organizations persist.

  “Sweet shop owners were actually defending themselves on the cultural logic that don't kill our culture.”
  — Dr. Ishita Dey (76:50)

  “Excess is produced at this cusp of standardizing value, ritual value, and artisanal value.”
  — Dr. Ishita Dey (77:50)

Notable Quotes

• “As if, you know, life can't go without sweetness.” (13:12, Dr. Dey)
• “The sensorial landscape of the sweet shops has been very central to understanding the materiality of sweets.” (19:34, Dr. Dey)
• “I think there’s much more to study beyond production to really understand this cultural landscape of sweetness.” (07:01, Dr. Dey)
• “It's rooted in the ritualistic framework, but it's also in the everyday life.” (57:16, Dr. Dey)
• “Mishti is not just a dessert, but a meal in itself.” (31:30, Dr. Dey)
• “Excess is a combination of the standardizing value, ritual value, and artisanal value.” (77:50, Dr. Dey)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:04 — Research origins and inspiration
• 09:04 — Conceptualizing excess and its importance
• 18:40 — Methods: Mapping sweets and fieldwork process
• 31:28 — Defining "mishti" and its ingredients
• 39:23 — Caste and religious influence; artisan hierarchies
• 47:13 — Negotiating caste in professionalized sweet shops
• 56:35 — Mishti in ritual/social exchange and commercial innovation
• 63:05 — Law, regulation, and GI debates
• 71:43 — Essential vs. non-essential commodities debate
• 77:50 — Theorizing excess at the intersection of state, ritual, and labor

Memorable Moments

• The revelation that peak sweet sales in Bangladesh coincide with school exam results, not only religious festivals. (57:45)
• The vivid account of “Cadbury Mishti” campaigns and the fusion of global and local sweets. (23:58, 59:08)
• The dual legal/cultural defense of sweet shops during the 1960s milk control crisis and the Covid-19 era. (15:00–16:00, 65:12–77:50)

Episode Takeaways

Dr. Dey’s Sweet Excess uncovers the ways mishti shapes and is shaped by Bengal’s social, economic, and sensory worlds. Far from a simple indulgence, the sweet is a product of caste and labor struggles, state regulations, and ritual obligations—emblematic of a distinct “cultural excess” that marks Bengali identity. By unpacking the many registers through which sweets operate, Dey offers a new lens on food, culture, and society in Bengal and beyond.

For those interested in the social life of food, caste, or South Asian cultural studies, this episode presents a rich and nuanced exploration that will deepen your appreciation for the humble mishti and its complex world.