Ganesha's Favorite Foods

Offering food to the gods (known as prasad) is an integral part of virtually every prayer ritual in Hinduism. With Ganesha, this takes on a special dimension, since the elephant God is a hearty eater with a special liking for high calorie treats! During Ganesh Chaturthi, a a variety of his favorite sweets and savories are prepared in homes with much the same love and care as they’d be made for a child’s birthday.

Topping the list of goodies is the modak, a steamed dumpling. Two varieties are made, one a savory ball of rice flour and black gram lentils and the other, stuffed with a coconut-jaggery filling. There’s more to the modak than meets the eye – it’s symbolic of the oneness of the universe.

In popular art, Ganesha is often depicted with a bowl of laddoos (pictured here) placed before him as prasad (there’s an aesthetic unity about this that’s visually pleasing, the golden yellow balls complementing Ganesha’s own rotund form!) Ganesha isn’t overly fussy about what sort of laddoo is offered. He’s extremely fond of the orange-hued motichoor laddoo, made of tiny, deep-fried gram-flour droplets. But he won’t say ‘no’ to rawa (semolina) laddoos or yellow, besan (gram flour) laddoos, either.