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Modern ovens furnished with electricity and gas powers are pretty fast replacing the traditional earthen ovens in baking Bakarkhani, the flat thin snack bread that has for centuries been ubiquitously present in the Old Dhaka households.

As Bakarkhani now makes a foray into the entire Dhaka city and ever beyond, a growing number of the bakers are choosing the new oven against the hassle of periodical maintenance of the traditional one that are also prone to releasing smoke to the irritation of neighbours.

Already around 70 per cent of around 150 shops engaged in making Bakarkhani in the old part of Dhaka city comprising Lalbagh, Chawk Bazar, Nazimuddin Road, Bangshal, Narinda, Gendaria and Jurain have installed the electricity-cum-gas ovens, said the bakers.

Mohammad Faruk, owner of the Nasu Faruker Bakarkhani on Nazimuddin Road, said that he had been using the gas-based oven for the past two years, getting rid of the maintenance chores for the earthen oven he had used for 30 years into the profession.

Price hike of wood coal is another reason leading him to switch to the new oven. Plus, as he says, the new technology is almost free from smoke that often attracts complaints from the neighbouring households and shops.

While more bakers plan for the technology switch, many Bakarkhani lovers sniff at the snack produced by the new technology, saying that it lacks originality.

Machine-baked Bakarkhani lacks the unique touch in taste, object the connoisseurs who miss the smoky flavour that emanates from the puffy bread with every bite, which for many a must-have particularly on a rainy or wintry day.Ìý

For them, the smoky flavour, which they are so fond of, is tied to the originality of the snack created during the Mughal era and handed down through generations.

‘As long as the earthen oven Bakarkhani is available I will not buy the gas-baked one,’ said Habibur Rahman, admin of Subandhan Samajik Kalyan Sanghathon, a Facebook-based organisation at Lalbagh working to preserve tradition and history.

He said that those who eat the gas-baked one missed the rich coal-wood flavour.

Mohammad Samiul, the operator of the Maa Babar Doa shop opposite to Sadhana Ousadhalay on Dinanath Sen Road at Gendaria admitted that the wood-coal-earth flavour in the gas-cum-electric oven was almost impossible.

But the new baking method preserves all other features, which largely depends on proper dough making and the use of the technique of applying ghee or edible oil and dry flour in the process.

Running the shop for the past two and half years with the new technology, Samiul said that both gas and the electricity supplies were necessary to run the new oven.

Gas maintains the heat of the oven, while electricity is required for its heating purpose, he said, adding that unlike earthen oven, bakers did no more need to wake at the daybreak to fire it up.

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‘We can pretty much start at 7:00am,’ he said, explaining the new oven saved them two hours.

Samiul, a man from north-eastern district Habiganj, learned baking with the earthen oven at shops at Keraniganj across the River Buraganga.

Another interesting bit of information is that down the centuries since the late Mughal period, Bakorkhani workers have been supplied by Habiganj in Sylhet division.

Samiul describes the new oven as business friendly particularly due to its efficiency in quick and quality production.

Do Samiul and his fellow bakers, nonetheless, feel a prick of conscience for breaking with the tradition?

The earthen oven was integral to the tradition as legends cast Bakarkhani’s creation several centuries back, attributing it to a love-struck Mughal warrior, Aga Baker, who crafted the crispy bread in this part of Bengal to immortalise his beloved Khani Begum,

Conscious as the carriers of a revered tradition and at the same time needing to respond to the changes in times, Faruk, Samiul and many other bakers trust that the great Aga Baker would not have much minded about their small compromises.