Abstract:
West Bengal and Odisha are the two neighbouring states in India. Due to the
climatic variations, a large number of crops, vegetables and fishes are produced
in this region. Therefore, diverse numbers of fermented foods are prepared which
can be categorized into four different groups (cereal- and pulse-based, plant-based,
dairy-based and fish-based). In this chapter, we focused on the traditional
preparation process, microbiology, nutritional value, optimization and commercialization
of the fermented foods prepared in West Bengal and Odisha. The
native people usually practise their indigenous knowledge for preparation of the
fermented foods. They unknowingly use the microbes for fermented food preparation.
Among the microbes, yeast, mould, lactic acid bacteria and Bacillus (B.)
sp. majorly took part in the fermentation process. However, most of the fermented
foods did not achieve significant scientific attention. This fact may lead
to the disappearance of the traditional knowledge. Therefore, it is essential to
explore the nutritional content and health benefits, detect critical control point,
optimize preparation process and eventually commercialize the traditional fermented
foods.
