Bhim Kol aru Gakhir

The Assamese breakfast of bhim kol, the big seeded banana, mashed into milk or curd with flattened rice and a little jaggery

Origin: Guwahati & the Brahmaputra Valley

From the journey of Banana.

Bhim kol is a banana with seeds in it. Hard black ones, a great many, set through flesh that is pale and faintly scented, and a first encounter with it is usually a surprise to anyone raised on the seedless supermarket fruit. It is Musa balbisiana, one of the two wild species from which every cultivated banana on earth descends, and it grows through the Brahmaputra valley in gardens, on bunds, and along the edges of paddy fields. In Assam it is the fruit of the beginning and the end of life. Deseeded and mashed with milk, or with milk and a little rice flour, it is among the first solid foods given to an infant, and it is what is sent to somebody recovering from illness or from childbirth, on the understanding that it settles the stomach. For everyone else it is jolpan, the Assamese breakfast of things that need no cooking: chira or komal saul in a bowl, curd or milk poured over, jaggery, and a banana crushed into it with the fingers. The plant it comes from is worked harder than the fruit. The same bhim kol gives the best kolakhar, the alkali burnt from its peel and trunk that opens an Assamese meal; its pseudostem is posola; its flower is koldil; and its leaves wrap the fish for patot diya. Very little of it is ever thrown away.

Ingredients

  • 2 ripe bhim kol bananas (or 3 ripe small bananas), peeled
  • 80 g chira (flattened rice), rinsed and drained
  • 300 ml cold whole milk or fresh curd
  • 2 tbsp jaggery (gur), grated, or to taste
  • 1 pinch salt

Method

  1. Rinse the chira in a sieve under cold water and leave it to drain for five minutes, until the flakes have swollen and softened.
  2. Break the bananas into a bowl and crush them roughly with the back of a spoon or with your fingers. If they are bhim kol, press the flesh through your fingers and discard the seeds as you go.
  3. Add the drained chira, the jaggery, and the salt, pour over the milk or curd, and stir once.
  4. Leave it to stand for two or three minutes and eat it cold, with a spoon.

Notes

Bhim kol is sold in the north-east and occasionally frozen elsewhere. Any ripe, well-flavoured banana gives the right bowl, without the seeds or the story. Komal saul, the soft rice of Assam that needs only to be steeped in water, replaces the chira in many households.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
© 2026 The Gastrographer. All original research, narratives, and illustrations. All rights reserved.