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Gudi Padwa
The Marathi New Year, with shrikhand scented with saffron and cardamom and a neem and jaggery mouthful.
Spices for Gudi Padwa
Gudi Padwa raises a decorated gudi pole outside the door. The meal includes puran poli and shrikhand, strained yoghurt sweetened and flavoured with saffron and cardamom, and a small mix of neem leaf and jaggery eaten at the start. Maharashtrian kitchens also use goda masala, a dark, mildly sweet blend with coconut, sesame and stone flower, in the savoury dishes of the day. The festival is a good moment to see how regional blends differ from the garam masala of the north.
The spices
Also part of it, and being written: Goda masala (The sweet, dark Maharashtrian blend used in festival dishes.).
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Gudi Padwa" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Cardamom: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Saffron: Hubertl, CC BY-SA 4.0, source