Bhog, prasad and the community kitchen

Bhog is food offered to the goddess and then distributed to everyone present. In a community puja that means an enormous kitchen — sometimes several hundred people fed in sittings across a single afternoon — run by volunteers from the para.

The classic Durga Puja bhog is khichuri: rice and dal cooked together with ghee and whole spices, wet rather than dry. With it comes labra, a mixed vegetable, plus beguni or another fritter, a tomato chutney, papad, and payesh or a sweet at the end. On Navami many pujas add a more elaborate spread.

Most community pujas serve bhog on Ashtami and Navami around midday, and a good number ask you to take a coupon in the morning. Ask at the pandal office — the phrase is simply 'bhog-er coupon'. Some pujas serve to anyone who turns up; some serve members first and everyone else after; a few do not serve to the public at all.

Bonedi bari pujas often distribute prasad rather than a cooked meal. Take it in your right hand, and eat it rather than pocketing it.

Sit where you are put. Do not photograph people eating without asking. If you are served on a sal-leaf plate, put it in the bin provided rather than on the ground — the volunteers clearing up have a long day.

If you have a food allergy, be careful: bhog is cooked at volume and there is nobody to ask about ingredients in the middle of a sitting. Almost all of it is vegetarian, and much of it is cooked without onion or garlic.