Bengali cuisine is considered easy to cook, with simple spices, and Bengalis take much pride in their food. Ask any Bengali on their cuisine, and invariably the description will include bhaat-macch (fish & rice), bhorta (mashed preparations), daal (lentil soup), shaak (leafy vegetables), narikel bata (coconut paste), shorshe-bata (mustard paste), posto-bata (poppy seed paste), shorsher tel (mustard oil), and panchphoron (five spices). Panchphoron is the only concoction of spices that Bengalis use to flavour their curries. No other culture in the world uses this blend in their cuisine.
