Ethnic fermented foods and beverages of West Bengal and Odisha

Abstract

West Bengal and Odisha are the two neighbouring states in India. Due to the climatic variations, a large number of crops, vegetables and fishes are produced in this region. Therefore, diverse numbers of fermented foods are prepared which can be categorized into four different groups (cereal- and pulse-based, plant-based, dairy-based and fish-based). In this chapter, we focused on the traditional preparation process, microbiology, nutritional value, optimization and commercialization of the fermented foods prepared in West Bengal and Odisha. The native people usually practise their indigenous knowledge for preparation of the fermented foods. They unknowingly use the microbes for fermented food preparation. Among the microbes, yeast, mould, lactic acid bacteria and Bacillus (B.) sp. majorly took part in the fermentation process. However, most of the fermented foods did not achieve significant scientific attention. This fact may lead to the disappearance of the traditional knowledge. Therefore, it is essential to explore the nutritional content and health benefits, detect critical control point, optimize preparation process and eventually commercialize the traditional fermented foods.