Food lovers will be in for a delight as they would get a chance to savour around 1,000 sweets from India and other countries at the ‘World Sweet Festival to be held here from January 13. Sweets from around 25 states in India and 15 foreign countries, to be prepared locally by members of various associations, will be displayed at the event, being organised by the Telangana government.
“The sweet festival is being organised to showcase the cosmopolitan nature of Hyderabad in a sweet way,” tourism and culture secretary B Venkatesam told PTI here. The three-day festival would be organised in association with various cultural, language and region-based associations of people, including those from foreign countries living in Hyderabad, since many years, he said.
“We are planning to organise the sweet festival with such families (who have made Hyderabad their home); like Indians live in America as Indians,” he said. The women from these region-based associations would make the sweets.
“No hotels, no shopkeepers, no caterers, no commercial representation,” Venkatesam said, adding that around 1,000 varieties of sweets would be on display at the Parade Grounds in Secunderabad. The stalls at the festival will be categorised not according to the state from where they originate but by the kind of sweets being offered.
For example, the ‘payasam’ made in Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Assam will be presented at one counter. “So, each sweet variety will look like a mini-India,” he said.
The women would be exhibiting as well as selling the sweets at the event, the official said. Some sweets would be made at home while there would be live counters for others (on the spot preparation), he said. A website and a mobile app have also been launched for the event, Venkatesam said. The event would be held along with kites festival which the state government organises every year.