Around 2,500 years ago, someone in India had the inspired, world-changing idea to extract granulated sugar from sugarcane juice, thereby creating joy. True, it was not the most long-lasting sort of joy, and not without its hazards (India currently has the highest diabetes rate in the world, 17% of the population versus 11% here). But that sugar does bring us joy— and creates joyful memories that never quite leave us — there can be no question.
It was also about 2,500 years ago that Indian Hindus began celebrating Diwali, a five-day festival devoted to the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance — and the heavy consumption of sweets, or mithai, over an otherwise healthy diet. This year’s begins Nov. 12.
Which brings us to present-day America, where “Diwali is having a mainstream moment,” CNN declared last year. Perhaps it’s the universal need to return to our childhoods. Diwali’s sweets seem to fund such journeys with unusual ease.
“I was the youngest of six siblings and we stayed in a joint family house, 16 to 18 people under one roof,” said Santokh Singh, 57 , smiling broadly as he heated a skillet of ghee, or clarified butter, dropped in several pods of cardamom and recalled his youth as the son of a farmer in rural Punjab. “During the festival, our home, the neighbor’s place, in fact the entire village was illuminated with diyas”–oil lamps–”candles and lanterns.”
Santokh Singh, partner and executive chef at Mahal in Roslyn Heights.
Credit: Randee Daddona
Once Singh stripped cardamom pods straight from the stems and made ghee from the milk of cows, goats and even a pair of buffalo on the family farm, but the end result both there and at Mahal in Roslyn Heights, where Singh has been executive chef since the restaurant’s opening in 2022, has always been a happy one, gajar ka halwa, a warm carrot pudding that’s a particular favorite of Hamsini Kumble of New Hyde Park.
“I grew up in the…
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