Tradition · sweet
Petha
/peːʈʰɑː/
Also known as Pēṭhā, Agra petha, Angoori petha, Kesar petha
Petha is a translucent candy of ash gourd (white pumpkin), cured in lime water, boiled and soaked in syrup, and it is Agra's sweet: more than 700 cottage units around Noori Gate make it. Agra's sellers say it came out of Shah Jahan's kitchen to feed the builders of the Taj Mahal, but no Shah Jahan cookbook mentions it and similar candies are older. In 2014 the Taj turned against it: coal-burning petha units in the protected zone were ordered to switch to gas, move or shut.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Material
- ash gourd, slaked lime (calcium hydroxide), sugar
- Confidence
- Traditional / narrative attribution
Worth knowing
The Supreme Court had banned coal in the Taj Trapezium Zone, an 80-kilometre radius around the mausoleum, in 1996. When petha units were shut in 2014, one maker told the Times of India that 'the Taj is not turning black because of us'.
The Shah Jahan and Taj Mahal origin is a legend repeated by Agra's sweet-makers (The Hindu, 2012; The Better India, 2018). Wikipedia judges it highly unlikely, since petha is absent from the Nuskha-e-Shahjahani and unlike the milk-rich Mughal sweets, and notes older names such as oal ka murabba in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Connections (4)
- Traditional linkShah Jahan
A legend. Agra's petha makers say the sweet slipped out of Shah Jahan's royal kitchen more than 350 years ago; The Better India's version has the emperor ordering a sweet as pure and white as the marble of the Taj Mahal, which then fed the thousands of workers building it. Wikipedia calls this highly unlikely: petha is not mentioned in Shah Jahan-era cookbooks such as the Nuskha-e-Shahjahani, it is unlike the milk- and mawa-rich Mughal sweets, and dishes resembling it predate the Mughals.
- Historical linkTaj Mahal
The sweet legend says was made for the Taj's builders became a threat to the Taj. The Supreme Court banned coal in the Taj Trapezium Zone, an 80-kilometre radius around the mausoleum, in 1996, and in 2014 petha units using coal or dumping waste in the Yamuna were ordered to switch to gas or move. Agra's makers protested that petha had been made the same way for decades; a Union minister, Kalraj Mishra, said the units were no threat to the monument.
- Craft tradition ofAgra
Petha is Agra's trade. More than 700 cottage units in the Noori Gate area make it, and travellers buy boxes even at five-minute halts at Agra's station. The best-known name, Panchhi Petha, was started by Seth Pancham Lal Goyal, called Panchhi, with one shop at the age of 24; its success has bred many look-alike shops whose signboards add small qualifiers such as 'Pure' before the name. It is sold alongside Agra's salty dalmoth.
- AnalogueNihari
Petha and nihari share a type of origin story: the food invented to feed the builders of a great monument. Agra says petha was made in Shah Jahan's kitchen to give quick energy to the Taj Mahal's workers; Lucknow says nihari was created during the construction of Asaf-ud-Daula's Imambara complex in 1784, and another version names the Rumi Gate's labourers. Both are legends, and for petha Wikipedia notes the Mughal cookbooks are silent. The pattern says more about how cities remember monuments than about kitchens.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Petha". Swati Daftuar, "Food Safari: in search of Agra Petha", The Hindu (9 June 2012). Ishita Mishra, "Petha industry not harming Taj: Kalraj", Times of India (31 August 2014). Sanchari Pal, The Better India (2 February 2018).
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