A Gluten-Free Dessert Shop by Two Literature Professors
Vedika Mehendale profiles Jaggery, a dessert venture by two literature professors in Delhi, offering gluten-free, refined sugar-free, and refined oil-free treats.
As a starry-eyed English major at Ashoka University, I had hoped to accomplish the following before graduating: 1. survive a course with Professor Madhavi Menon 2. figure out where Shakespeare got the masala with Professor Jonathan Gil Harris, and hopefully, 3. create meaningful friendships within the department. In the Spring semester of 2023, I managed to accomplish two out of the three things, though not exactly in the way I imagined.
For four long months, my peers and I performed intense mental gymnastics, dense theoretical readings and lost many hours of sleep over Professor Madhavi’s course on advanced literary theory. On the last day of class, with barely 3 hours of sleep, we were met with a surprise: poetry and desserts! Professor Madhavi brought in gluten-free chocolate chip cookies from her very own side hussle, Jaggery Desserts.
Jaggery Desserts was a venture borne in the home of two English professors. Prof. Madhavi was forced to eliminate gluten and refined sugar from her diet, and she grieved the loss of desserts from her life. Not willing to give up, she taught herself the language of recipes and began researching gluten-free, refined-sugar-free desserts. An essential part of this process was Bishwajit Das, the professors’ home chef who was born with an intrinsic gift in the kitchen. Together, they brought to life the first line of desserts at Jaggery: coffee cake, tahini chocolate chip cookies, lemon cake squares, carrot cupcakes with pecan frosting, and pecan fudge brownies.
I was curious to know how the professors reconcile their love of literature with their love of desserts. For Madhavi, the creation of desserts began with learning a new language, the language of recipes. She appreciates that her association with desserts is very much an association with reading. Jonathan took me back to something he taught us in class: that literature began as a public phenomenon. He noted that in a time when books and food are both regarded as private commodities, we need to remember that the consumption of stories and food alike has traditionally been a social act, and both are made remarkably more enjoyable when done in the company of others.
Watching the excellent results of experiments in his home, Jonathan was inspired to turn his dessert making adventure into a business. At the heart of the brand’s vision is their love of literature. “Our desserts are stories that are meant to be shared,” he says. “The joy of eating becomes even more joyous if you can look someone in the eye and say, ‘We have had this experience together. Wasn’t that wonderful?’”
The desserts are made with sweeteners like dates, maple syrup, coconut sugar and jaggery, the last being Prof. Madhavi’s personal favourite. The personality of these sweeteners, with their rustic intensity and smoky undertones, was precisely what they wanted the name Jaggery Desserts to convey.
Much of the idea of Jaggery is entangled with the lives and identities of the two professors. The menu is named for the city’s geography: there is the Lutyens' Linzer, Connaught Square and Pe-Khan Market Brownie. Jaggery’s gajar ki kheer is a combination of Madhavi’s two favorite North Indian desserts.
Given the couple’s attachment to Delhi, I was surprised to find Sri Lankan watalappam on the menu. A recent addition to the menu, it has its own story. Madhavi and Jonathan were in Chennai at the ITC Grand Chola enjoying a fancy buffet when Madhavi realized that she couldn’t eat a single dessert from the array of 35 on offer. “ My life is incomplete without sweets, from morning to night,” she says, crestfallen at the prospect of a dessert-less afternoon. But the ITC’s legendary hospitality came to the rescue, with watalappan whipped up specifically for her - gluten and sugar free, containing only jaggery, coconut and eggs. Madhavi ate four portions of watalappan.
Currently the owners juggle their full-time jobs as professors alongside the business. In the future, they hope to find people who will help run Jaggery with their passion and vision. “I love that our offerings are as delicious as they are healthy; I hate the the notion that you must pick one at the loss of the other.”
Jaggery’s products are wrapped in biodegradable packaging, with no plastic. Images: Aarohi Mehra
The professors recommended one piece of food literature each — Madhavi points at In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, and Jonathan recommends Francois Rabelais’s' Gargantua. Both by French authors, I point out. And they reply, “Well, the French really enjoy their food!”
Vedika Mehendale is a third year English student at Ashoka University.
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