Dharwad peda, the famous dark brown sweet from Karnataka, has a fascinating story that began with migration and the search for a livelihood. It is said that about 175 years ago, a family of Thakurs from Unnao, Uttar Pradesh, came to Dharwad due to the plague epidemic. What followed was the making of a local speciality that had only two basic ingredients: milk and sugar.
Ram Ratan Singh Thakur started making pedas after coming to Dharwad. With the help of a unique recipe in his family, he prepared pedas by slow-cooking milk and sugar. This resulted in a unique colour, flavour, and texture of the peda, which is dark in colour, rich in taste and grainy in texture.
His grandson, Babu Singh Thakur, made the sweet famous by selling it at Line Bazaar. News about the sweet spread rapidly, and soon people started collecting around the stall in large numbers. It is believed that the queue was so famous that the street came to be known as Line Bazaar.
The family kept the recipe a closely guarded secret without even putting it on paper. According to reports, production at the company ranges from 700 to 800 kg of peda on a daily basis. This sweet can be found under the names Dharwad Peda, Thakur Peda and Babu Singh Thakur Peda.
What sets the Dharwad peda apart from other preparations is its minimal use of ingredients and its meticulous preparation process. Raw milk is reduced to khoya before sugar is added to it. The mixture is cooked on a slow fire and constantly stirred till it attains a distinct brown colour and flavour. The finished pedas are shaped, cooled and sometimes dusted with powdered sugar. In 2007, Dharwad peda received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag.
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