Jaipur, May 26, 2025.
In the wake of the recent India-Pakistan tensions, it has been reported that some sweetmeat shops in Rajasthan have renamed sweets like Mysore Pak, Gond Pak, and Moti Pak as Mysore Shree, Gond Shree, and Moti Shree, respectively. According to PTI, the name change is complete in at least three famous confectioneries in Jaipur, which have dropped ‘Pak’ from the entire range of their traditional sweets and replaced it with ‘Shree’.
But what does the word ‘pak’ mean in the names of sweets?
Home chef Aishwarya Damodaran told us that pak denotes the consistency of sugar syrup, or means simply a sweet syrup. “It’s from a Sanskrit word. But in Tamil, we also colloquially say paagu for the string consistency that defines whether the sweet is cooked or not,” said Aishwarya.
Chef Shipra Khanna concurred and shared that in classical Indian confectionery, the word ‘pak’ refers to the process of cooking sugar to a particular consistency. According to her, ‘Pak’ is not just a suffix — it’s a signal of perfection in sugar work, in traditional Indian mithai-making.
In the case of Mysore Pak, in which chickpea flour, ghee, and sugar are mixed in a hot pan until the pak stage is reached, it forms a fudge-like texture that’s rich and grainy. “Mysore Pak is a result of careful attention to temperature and timing — too early, and it’s undercooked; too late, and it hardens,” said Khanna.
Chef Ranveer Brar, who often speaks about the history of culinary ingredients and documents them, added that the word pak comes from the Sanskrit word ‘paaka, which comes from the word ‘paacha, which essentially means cooking or ripening. Most ancient books, whether it is Paka Darpana, Pak Kala, or Paaka Shastra, all use the word pak. “The word Pak is only the process of cooking or ripening. The word pakwa in Hindi comes from Paaka, which comes from Paakhi rasoi or the cook’s kitchen. Similarly, these sweets, which are pakwans, get their names from Pak,” said Brar.
