Christmas in Kolkata and Bandel cheese

Cheeses for Christmas in Kolkata and Bandel cheese

Christmas is a citywide festival in Kolkata, with lights along Park Street and queues at the old bakeries of New Market for plum cake. The same market is where most of the city buys its two historic cheeses. Bandel cheese, a small salted and often smoked cheese, is believed to come from the Portuguese settlement at Bandel on the Hooghly. Kalimpong cheese, a soft cow's-milk cheese from the hills, was first made by a Jesuit parish priest in the town. Both are bought for Christmas tables, sliced onto crackers or crumbled into salads, and are a small taste of the city's colonial and missionary past.

The cheeses

Bandel cheeseSmall smoked or salted cheese with Portuguese roots.Kalimpong cheeseSoft hill cheese first made by a Jesuit priest.