Food plays a vital role in the vibrant celebrations that mark Diwali, Deepavali, Bandi Chhor Diwas and Tihar, a festival of light and hope that happens around this time every year.
Special dishes, snacks and sweets are a key part of the joyful and meaningful traditions celebrated during this time, as is the sharing of meals and connecting with friends and family. SBS Food, SBS Audio and SBS On Demand are serving up a delicious spread of recipes, stories, podcasts, movies and more to mark this wonderful celebration.
Cook with SBS Food
The various festivals of light are celebrated in many countries around the world, and in communities and households across Australia, and each has its own delicious recipes and food traditions. Adding to SBS Food’s Diwali recipe collection, which features snacks, desserts, street food and feasting recipes (including the sweet, buttery biscuit-like slice pictured above, chana magaj, which is often served at Hindu festivals), recipe writer and dessert-lover Anchal Verma has shared three wonderful recipes that make sweets all kinds of easy: mango ladoo, rose coconut burfi and cashew burfi.
You can also explore beautiful personal stories of Diwali traditions, such as these:
Festival of Flavours with Kishwar Chowdhury
In a wonderful four-part series celebrating Diwali traditions in Australia, Melbourne chef Kishwar Chowdhury (a former Masterchef Australia contestant) talks to members of different communities that celebrate Diwali, and also takes us into her home kitchen to share some of her favourite festival dishes. The recipes include mishti doi, a dessert from Bengal; an Indian-inspired, Australian-influenced Diwali grazing board where lamingtons line up alongside laddus; a Punjabi street food staple, chole bhature; and a pani puri variation called fuchka, crispy fried spheres filled with potato, onion or chickpeas, and seasoned with tamarind chutney, chilli powder or chaat masala.
Read more, watch the video series and listen to an interview with Kishwar Chowdhury here.
Sandeep Pandi shares four sweet Diwali recipes
Chef Sandeep Pandit, a host of SBS Food's cooking show India Unplated (streaming now at SBS On Demand), has cooked up a special Diwali feast for SBS audiences through four sweet recipes from various states of India. Discover sandesh, a Diwail dessert from Begal; pistachio srikhand cups, a traditional sweet from Gujarat and Maharashtra; modur puri and kahwa – a combination featuring a sweet flatbread and an aromatic tea; and badam puri, a dessert from Karnataka.
Read more, watch the recipe video series and find links to all the recipes here.
My Diwali podcast
Brand new podcast My Diwali features well-known South Asian personalities and everyday Australians sharing their experiences of celebrating Diwali. Join host Raksha Burman and guests as they discuss their favourite foods and traditions, share childhood memories, and explore how Diwali intersects with belonging and identity. Episodes are being released throughout Diwali. The first episode, From Masterchef to motherhood: Depinder Chibber celebrates her creative Diwali is live now and will enchant food lovers, as Chibber shares how the love for her culture is the secret ingredient behind her many creative recipes. This Diwali, she is looking forward to teaching her daughter how to make mithai and creating rangoli with her.
Read more here, including Depinder's easy kalakand (a popular milk dessert) recipe, made in the microwave.
Travel, eat, explore
Settle in (perhaps with a bowl of comforting semolina halva, some sweet, crunchy jalebi, creamy milk barfi – the quick version here if you are short on time! – or homemade seeni sambol buns) for shows that will transport you to India and beyond, or take you into the kitchen to explore more Diwali food.
SBS Food (Channel 33) celebrates Diwali 6-17 November. Tune in for David Rocco’s India at 4pm Monday to Friday, followed at 5pm by the six-part series Rick Stein’s India from 6-13 November, then special episodes of other shows including India Unplated and The Cook Up on 14-17 November. (Check the TV Guide for full details). Look out, too, for the final episode of Luke Nguyen's India (8.30 pm Thursday 6 November on SBS Food), which sees Luke finishing his South Indian adventure at a vibrant Diwali celebration.
And while it's not food, fans of Bettany Hughes can also travel India from north to south in good company in the two-part series Treasures of India with Bettany Hughes, screening Sunday November 5 and 12 at 7.30pm.
SBS On Demand also has a Diwali Feasts collection, where you can see Rick Stein, Adam Liaw, Luke Nguyen, Helly Raichura, Adam D’Sylva, Sandeep Pandit, Anthony Bourdain and more, sharing or learning about Indian and Asian food and Diwali recipes.
A feast of film
SBS On Demand is also home to a curated collection of diverse films and documentaries centred on many of the cultures that celebrate the Festival Of Lights. Explore collections centred on some of the key themes of Diwali: Embracing Love; Eliminating Darkness; Being the Light in Someone’s Life; and Embracing Magic. There’s something for everyone here, whether you want vibrant musical romance or thoughtful stories based on true life. There’s The Man Who Knew Infinity starring Dev Patel as Srinivasa Ramanujan, an exceptionally gifted mathematician navigating Trinity College in Cambridge; the rousing and true story of women in the film industry in Women Beyond Bollywood (arrives 9 November at SBS On Demand; also on SBS VICELAND on Sunday 12 November at 9.30pm); acclaimed feminist comedy-drama Angry Indian Goddesses; Hindi romantic musical Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam starring celebrated Indian actors Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai as a married couple gone wrong; and Bangladeshi drama The Salt in Our Waters where progressive sculpture artist Rudro moves to a local village only to attract suspicion when the fish start to disappear.
SBS World Movies is also celebrating Diwali with a movie marathon (see the TV Guide for full details) on Sunday 12 November. The non-stop line-up starts with Anandi Gopal (7.25am) and runs through to The Warrior Queen of Jhansi (10.25pm). The program also includes the comedy-drama India Sweets and Spices (9.30pm), the funny, clever and very entertaining winner of the prestigious Academy Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting and a Gold List Award for Breakout Indie Film (which is also streaming now at SBS On Demand).
You'll be laughing, thinking - and probably hungry (we suggest a platter of bara, the delicious deep-fried lentil dumplings pictured above, would be right at home). Watch the trailer and you'll see what we mean:
Food and film lovers may especially enjoy Gulabjaam (streaming now at SBS On Demand), a Marathi film that sees Aditya, a banker based in London, travel to Pune to learn how to cook Marathi dishes from Rahda; the eternally popular Lunchbox (airing 11.55am 12 November on World Movies); and The Boot Cake (streaming now at SBS On Demand), a documentary by Australian filmmaker Kathryn Millard that tells a story of hope and resilience about a small desert town in Indian, home to earthquake survivors, that's throwing a birthday party for Charlie Chaplin - cake included.
Stream free On Demand
The Boot Cake
Documentary • 2008
Documentary • 2008
SBS Food is a 24/7 foodie channel for all Australians, with a focus on simple, authentic and everyday food inspiration from cultures everywhere. NSW stream only. Read more about SBS Food
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