A 5-star hotel in Dhaka offered gold-laced jilapi for a few days. Hotels and restaurants in this country have been preparing Bombay jilapi, reshmi jilapi in addition to the common variety of this crisp sweetmeat of two and a half roundabout twists prepared by rice powder first fried in oil and then soaked in hot syrup of molasses or sugar. During each Ramadan, bakeries and eateries announce their specialty in preparing either of these two choice types or both in order to draw customers. But who could think of a layer of gold on jilapis?
Few people in this country or elsewhere know that gold is edible. At a time when the price of gold, favoured for its value as ornaments or bullion worldwide, has been smashing all previous records, common people are least bothered about this popular and precious metal. Volatile international and domestic markets following the war in Ukraine triggered the spin off the value of gold when most currencies failed to hold their grounds against the dominant dollar, the globally accepted exchange currency.
When a large number of people in this country, like many in countries hit by after-shock of unusually high energy price and disruption of supply chains of foods on account of Ukraine war, are struggling to manage even two square meals, they are least concerned if gold is eatable. The idea of gold-coated jilapis is sure to be received by them with total disbelief.
However, the 5-star hotel management catering to the delectable taste of the highly privileged and the filthy rich had no qualms about discovering a niche business by stoking the ultimate consumerism. That the management's business acumen proved up to the point is clear enough. The unheard of gold-layered jilapi priced at Tk 20,000 a kilogram, which could not be ordered less than 250 gram at Tk 5,000, did not take long to go out of stock. Even the hotel management may have erred on the reverse side by not procuring enough edible gold for it to last the entire month of Ramadan. It had to regret that the hotel could not take any more order of jilapis with gold tops because the stock of gold exhausted. Maybe, next year the hotel will make no such mistake and chances are that rivals of the 5-star hotel will also follow suit.
Jilapis are an iftar item but certainly not a must item. When the majority of fasting followers of Islam can do without the normal variety of the sweetmeat, the indulgence in this extreme luxury food is indeed an affront to the humble and poor devotees. Here is a month of self-abstinence or siam but there is a general trend to highlight sumptuousness. Gold-coated jilapis are unlikely to be beneficial for health also.
True the ancient Egyptians had known the use of edible gold 5,000 years ago. They believed gold had divine effects and they used it for mental, physical and spiritual purification. Alchemists of Alexandria developed various medicines and elixirs with gold because they were of the opinion that it restored and rejuvenated human body. In the Middle Age, European kings used edible gold for food decoration, a symbol of luxury at its extreme.
Even today, the European Union and the United States of America authorise a particular type of gold as a food additive. Coded E175, it finds its use only in extravagant meals. It is important to note here that there are 'neither negative effects nor benefits from high-carat food-grade gold'.
Then what is the use of eating gold-coated foods? Those who prepare such foods do not exactly appeal to the taste buds of the more equal among the people of any country; rather they unmistakably appeal to their ego, the sense of one's class apart and exhibitionism. What the kings in Europe's Middle Age did, today's wealthiest products of the free market economy are reinventing. People who prefer luxury at its most extravagant with means to explore its outreach, think they have a right to do so. But saner sections of the humanity find such indulgences obnoxious.
With rare exceptions, the wealthy and privileged are prone to defy religious edicts. It is because of their lax religious belief and a lack of a sense of moral obligation to their fraternity or fellow human beings, they can spend heaps of money on cheap entertainment unmindful of the misery of the poor and the hungry. The gold-laced jilapi is a symbol of heartlessness and soullessness of a special breed. Thus with all the scientific and technological progress of the world, the cry of the soul in a soulless world goes abegging.
The world has enough food and wealth to modestly provide for its current population many times over. But it is an imperfect world where mightier than others have exploited as many as they could by suppressing and subjugating the latter. That trend has not changed with wealth getting concentrated in a few hands to the deprivation of the majority. No wonder, one per cent of the world's population is in possession of half of the global net wealth and the top 10 per cent owns 85 per cent while the bottom 90 per cent have to do with the remaining 15 per cent of the total global wealth. Where will the top 10 per cent spend if they do not make gold eatable!
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