New Books Network Ishita Dey, "Sweet Excess: Crafting Mishti in Bengal" (Routledge, 2025)
Jan 21, 2026
Ishita Dey, an Assistant Professor of Sociology and food ethnographer, delves into the world of mishti—Bengal's beloved sweets. In this engaging discussion, she shares insights from her decade-long study, revealing how caste and religion shape sweet-making identities. Dey explains the cultural significance of sweets in rituals and festivals, and how they reflect social hierarchies and heritage. She also explores the impact of regulatory debates and globalization on traditional sweet practices, making mishti a fascinating lens through which to understand Bengali culture.
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Shopkeeper Warning Sparks Inquiry
- During fieldwork in Dhaka a shopkeeper warned her not to count heads but to order a minimum quantity of sweets.
- This exchange convinced Ishita Dey that sweets carry prescribed social obligations beyond mere consumption.
Excess Reframes Sweets' Cultural Role
- Excess frames sweets as culturally essential rather than merely luxury or waste.
- Ishita Dey shows excess combines cultural, aesthetic and sustenance registers to explain why sweets persist across austerity and abundance.
Multi-Sited Fieldwork Reveals Variety
- Dey mapped sweet production across urban cores and rural peripheries in West Bengal to capture varied practices.
- Fieldwork combined observations in semi-mechanized and traditional shops plus a Quesida quality-control lab visit.
