Amrat Paak

It is often said that Gujaratis are born enterprenuers, business acumen runs in their blood.  The will and zeal to exapand their horiszons has pushed lakhs of Gujaratis to explore distant lands. As a result, we have ventured not only in various parts of India but across the globe. It is hard not to find a Gujarati even in the least expected countries around the world.  The easy going and friendly community that Gujaratis are is very well expressed in  a very popular varnacular song, “Jya jya wase ek Gujarati, tya sada kal Gujarat…” even a single gujarati will create a Gujarat whereever he/she settles.  Before the Gujaratis reached the North America, they set out for Africa with the ships embarking upon long voyages from the various ports of Gujarat, the popular being the port of Mandvi in Kutch.  Way back in the mid 1800 the British East India Company coaxed  lakhs of Indians to work on building continent’s one of the great railway.  And most of them stayed back ever since. The three countries,  Kenya, Zanzibar and Uganda had the highest concentration of Indians. Apart from labourers Indians also immigrated to East Africa as money lenders, traders and artisans. I have been told there were Gujarati schools there and the teachers here were specially called from Gujarat. These Gujarati businessmen and traders, shopkeepers known as dukhawalas together have contributed hugley in the economic development of East Africa. The Gujaratis might be  segregated by caste but the language and their enterprise glued them together. The community flourished, but remained deeply united. Until their expulsion from Uganda in 1972 and the sense of  insecurity many settlers arrived in UK,  South Africa, Canada, Australia, Fiji and other commonweath countires or to US, Tanzania, India, Pakistan… where they built their lives all over again.

Apart from the language and their business acumen,  it was food that united the Gujaratis in this faraway lands. A lot of food preperations that they took along with them have no mention if we explore the mentions. It also gave birth to East African Gujarati Food that emerged with the immersion of Ugandan/East African ingredients and Gujarati spices!” as mentioned by Sheena Patel – American with East African Gujarati heritage, over  my Insatgram post of Amrat Paak. This is so ineresting and needs to be explored further.

The Amrat Pak, I share here has been quite a revelation.  Our search for an authentic recipe of Amrat Pak was spread across 3 continents. Asia, Europe and Africa. Smitaben scouted for the recipe in the UK and later in South Africa to help me document the Amrat Pak she had grown up eating. I searched for the recipe or mention of it with friends and family in Gujarat. No one seemed to have memory of eating it in Gujarat l. Next came trying the recipes, she in her UK kitchen and I in my Amdavadi kitchen with our families who certainly were a happy bunch of guinea pigs. Smitaben is a very dear friend who has grown up in East Africa and is now settled in the UK. Amrat Paak  is a lavish and decadent Gujarati mithai/fudge that travelled along with Gujaratis who immigrated to British East Africa in the early 19th century and later to the countries the Gujarati Diaspora settled after their expulsion from Uganda by Idi Amin in early 1970s

As Smitaben writes..

Amritpak was part of my growing up! 

My mum used to make it and so did all the relatives and friends of my my mother’s age. It was the fixed sweet dish on the menu  at whoever’s house we went to for a meal. You would even at the weddings and religious functions within the East African Gujarati community. Overindulgence put me off Amritpak completely and may be others of my age too as the sweet which was common in my Mum’s generation is  close to extinction in my generation. I never made an effort to learn it until recently my good friend Sheetal inquired about it. 

So I asked one of my Aunties and had a go at it. The outcome was not how I remembered it.

In my recent trip to South Africa I asked Sarojmasi to give me a tutorial on Amritpak and to my surprise I have fallen in love with it! She made such a delicious Amritpak and in true Gujarati style she packed the container for me to take home back to UK  and I just can’t stop eating it! 

This effort  brought back  the sweet that was part of my childhood and a massive thank you to Sarojmasi for teaching me …Amrat Paak has come back into my life!

Amrat/Amrut/ Amrit means divine neacter and this mithai is nothing short than that. It is rich, has texutre and bite, the range of ingredients lend it varid flavours that seamlessly blend well togheter.

We have documented three versions of this mithai. And I will share all of them as I make and capture them. The first to go will be the recipe Smitaben sourced from an aunt in UK.

It is a slow cooked recipe, so have time on hand when you attempt to make it.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed searching it.

❤️