Roat

Sacred festival wheat-jaggery cake — a thick, unleavened wheat flour flat cake sweetened with coarsely powdered jaggery and fennel seeds, cooked on a tawa in ghee until both sides are golden-brown and the jaggery has caramelised within the dough. Made specifically for the Harela festival (the Garhwali new year celebration marking the start of the monsoon) and offered first to the gods. The roat is made fresh, blessed, and shared among the family. Its simplicity is intentional — it is a sacred offering, not a complex confection.