While exclusion and scarcity can often be crippling, in the minds as brilliant as that of Bengali women, the two formed ingredients of culinary innovation and ultimately, the Bengali widow cuisine.
Widows were forced to eat a frugal vegetarian meal— often with limited ingredients and leftovers from the meals cooked for the rest of the family. But this separation turned out to be a boon rather than a bane. Because it gave the widows the freedom to experiment with their food and extract the maximum possible flavour from the simple ingredients they had.
And boom, this led to the extension of niramish cuisine. It is defined by maximized flavours achieved with minimum complexity. Typical Bengali vegetables like brinjal, pumpkin, potato, beans are transformed into delicious dished with limited spices like mustard, nigella seeds, green chillies and ginger.
Some interesting additions atypical to the rest of India are addition of poppy seeds and bori (sun-dried lentil dumplings).