Varanasi's Tiranga Barfi gets awarded GI Tag

The recent addition to the list of foods that have got a Geohraphical Indication (GI) tag is Kashi’s Tiranga Barfi, which played an important role in the country's freedom movement. As per news reports, Tiranga Barfi which is popular for its taste across the country, will get a new identity. If reports are to believed, then there are a total of 34 such products in Kashi, which have got the copyright of Varanasi and is believed to be the record for the highest number of intellectual property rights in the name of a particular land area.Besides this Barfi, another product of Varanasi, Dhalua Murti Dhatu Shilpa (Metal Casting Craft) has also been included in the GI category.
History of Tiranga Barfi
Well, for those who don’t know, Tiranga Barfi was invented for intelligence meetings of revolutionaries and the exchange of secret information during the pre-independence era in 1940 by Madan Gopal Gupta who, was the then director of sweet shop Ram Bhandar. He was not alone in making this sweet. In fact, several other revolutionaries also helped him in making this barfi. When India was still ruled by the British, there was a ban on the tricolour, and thus, to communicate this, Tiranga Barfi was made that had the exact colour of the Tiranga (the national flag of India). This barfi was also distributed free to raise the alarm against the British rule. As per reports, when the British got a whiff of this Barfi, and saw it, they were shocked to see the exact colours of Tiranga.
The ingredients
Well, seeing the exact Tiranga colours in this Barfi, one may think of the ingredients being used to prepare as there were no edible colours back then. Though, one can easily spot this barfi in the entire Varanasi, people argue that the Tiranga Barfi sold at Ram Bhandar still maintains the taste that used to be there in the 1940’s. Talking about the ingredients, it’s prepared using saffron, pistachio, khoya and cashewnuts. While saffron is used for saffron colour in Barfi, pistachio makes for the green colour and for the white part, khoya and cashew nuts are mixed together.