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MAKE ‘LADOO’ NATIONAL SWEET OF INDIA!
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MAKE ‘LADOO’ NATIONAL SWEET OF INDIA!

Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! - A variety food column October 11, 2025 , by

IMAGINE, the all-Indian “ladoo”? Suddenly this festive season it dawned on me how much I appreciate and relish the ladoo, quintessential primary sweet across the sub-continent of South Asia, meaning India. Whenever a festival comes around there’ll be some ladoo being offered somewhere and I’ve always accepted happily a ladoo, be it the “besan ladoo,” the “methi ladoo”, the “gond ladoo”, the “churma ladoo”, the “boondi ladoo” (microscopic or macroscopic “boondi”more yellow or more orange) – ladoo are a traditional sweet across the states of India and we will find them in various avatar with small differences in ingredients, but they’re mostly perfectly round in shape.
IN our more health-conscious times one may find a ladoo light-hearted in sugar values. The quintessential and most popular besan and boondi ladoo are usually sweetened with white sugar…ladoo trace their origin in Indian tradition and culture, in every home there will be home-made or mithai shop ladoo come a festival (many festivals arrive one after another at year-end).
Lately I’ve been thinking some more of the ladoo and how since it rules most of our homes, surely it must be considered, respected enough to be declared as the national sweet of India. What do you think? Think about it. There is no act so simple as a happy occasion and the distribution of ladoo…every time a celebration comes around we distribute ladoo – most homes do keep a sweet and a savory at home for tea time hunger pangs, or if someone drops in perchance, there must be something savory, something sweet to offer by way of “muh meetha karo.”
Funny or not funny, after a life time of savoring and relishing various kinds of ladoo (which just suggests a round shape, ladoo shape), I’ve zeroed down to just three ladoo I love to offer at home as something sweet or to friends – it’s not easy to find the ladoo I usually crave for as something sweet to soothe the soul which becomes a little bitter as time goes by…my favored ladoo are the soft dulcet haleem or garden cress ladoo, or the occasional or methi or gond or churma or fine boondi ladoo. Most times I get besan and more and more it is simply dry fruit ladoo…that is chopped dry fruit mix embedded in soft dates, this is a new avatar ladoo more and more buy to avoid the sugar and ghee combo of other ladoo, in fact I notice how the dry fruit ladoo are marginalizing all other traditional ladoo! Dry fruit ladoo are sort of look, ma, no sugar, only dry fruit smothered in soft, gooey dates of the Middle East…of course these dry fruit ladoo are the most expensive, but they’re a runaway success.
WITH one long round of festivals turning up I find it easier to offer a box of ladoo when I’m visiting someone special. And many are the ladoo offerings in Goan mithai shops, some have amazing new varieties too which I don’t much care for. But the traditional range is always desirable and especially the roasted besan flour, rice flour, whole wheat flour ladoo; also find mung ladoo, the dark red nachne or ragi ladooo – even pearl millet or bajra ladoo which is exquisitely flavorful. In Goa one may see cashewnut ladoo at the dry fruit shops down 18 June road in Panaji or Panjim.
The famous “mila” (roasted grated coconut and palm jaggery) also comes in ladoo form (in square cuts too)…nothing like a good mila! Some temples I know will offer you a knob of besan ladoo by way of “prasad” (that which has been offered and blessed by the deities first) and of course most of us are familiar with the famous Tirupati temple boondi ladoo of Tamil Nadu – this is a rich dryish boondi oftentimes considered as the best ladoo of them all to relish and also a blessed ladoo “prasadam.”
Boondi ladoo are very popular and come in several versions apart from the soft velvety moist boondi ladoo, there are also the dry crunchy sweet boondi ladoo – the little itsy bitsy golden “boondi” is the result of gram flour batter dropped into hot ghee using a perforated “jaali” spoon, the quickly cooked boondi is removed and dropped into a sugar syrup – when cool the ladoo are hand-shaped and set on a tray, each ladoo redolent of cardamom or dotted with caju or golden raisin.
Okay, no more ladoo talk! But I remember my mother dear crumbling up yesterday’s dry chappati into a “choora,” adding home-made ghee and powder sugar to it, pinches of cardamom, and making instant “churma ladwa.” Very agreeable. Food was rarely thrown away.
BUT before I wind up here I must introduce to the latest place where I go to pick up ladoo – my friend Praynya and Akhil Rane’s recently inaugurated “Ghargutee” (near the Shiva Devasthan mandir in Taleigao). I’m always happy to drop in here for a find amongst the day’s fresh goodies could be “amboli” (the soft Goan steamed flatbread of fermented rice and urid dal batter, call them pancakes of the very best kind if you like, not sweet but flavorful). Pradnya has a kitchen of self-help group women who turn out some desirable Goan curries, sweets and savouries – read besan and some more ladoo; the tantalizing “chakri” is not spicy, thank-you; and let’s say here you may find a whole lot of things you’re looking for because it is “homemade, healthy, diebetic-friendly…pure ghee sweets, home cooked food, pre-order takeaways — like the much loved GSB sweet “nachne sattvo” or “taushali” (steamed cucumber/water melon cake); or find “mori” or shark curry curry or chicken xacuti here. The freshly made cooked food is however available only on prior order.
I also drop in at Ghargutee for the wonderful wheat flour chapatti, although what I’m really looking for is the millet chapatti of jowar or nachne or bajra made freshly for the day. Ghargutee also stocks a whole of goodies from fresh masala mixes to millet “choora” and some wonderful soaps too. There’re interesting finds daily, make time to drop by.
INCREASINGLY, I find if I can’t millet flatbreads for love or for money, I just want to live on the savoury steamed flours of Gujarat (“kicha-no- lot, bajri-no-lot, patuda-no-lot”…more about them another time, real good food this and so virtuously wholesome as in sattvic food (you’ll forget all the industrial tamasic and rajasic foods of our times which set the stage for a diseased body beautiful)!

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