Muzaffarpur - Cuisine

Cuisine

There is no specific, authentic and purely "Muzaffarpur cuisine" as such: most of the cuisine can at best be termed regional cuisine. The basic ingredients are rice, wheat flour, lentils (green and yellow), root and leafy vegetables, Indian spices, ground nut oil, Mustard seed oil, ghee, sugar and jaggery, among others. The traditional breakfast includes jalebi, poori, samosa or potato curry served hot with any of a variety of chutneys and finished with milk tea. Indianised Chinese dishes such as noodles, Tandoori dishes and South Indian dishes are also eaten. Most of the ethnic cuisine and special dishes are cooked during festivals, religious functions and marriages. In modern Muzaffarpur, ethnic cuisines have given way to the oily, hot and spicy foods of the Pan-Indian type.

Toddy is a fermented juice of the palm tree which has about 5%–8% alcohol and is very popular as "Poor Man's Beer" in Muzaffarpur.

A variety of spicy dry, baked, fried, deep fried or curried mutton, chicken, fish and shellfish are prepared and eaten. Mughalai and a few Continental dishes, such as macaroni or spaghetti, duly Indianised, are home cooked and relished by some people. Pre- and post-dinner Betel nut (Paan) chewing is very popular, along with chewing tobacco.