Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, the Maharaja of Mysore Kingdom, was a great food connoisseur of his time who would indulge and invite with all sorts of culinary affair.
Tales reveal that when time allowed him after his imperial duties, Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IVwould peek into the royal kitchen and cook a dish or two with the head cook of the Mysuru Palace (present-day Mysore Palace).
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Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV was the twenty-fourth Maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore with a reigning period for almost 50 years, born in 1884 and left for heavenly abode in 1940.
Once during lunch, the head cook, Kakasura Madappa, experimented with a concoction of gram flour, ghee and sugar as a sweet dish for Maharaja. With dripping ghee and the yellow colour of the gram flour, it looked like shimmering gold. The king liked it so much, and it just melted in his mouth as he devoured it.
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When asked about its name, Madappa had no idea as he just made it without thinking much to work on the name. Having had nothing in mind, he simply called it “Mysore Pak” (read as “Mysuru paka”). In Kanada language, paka means a sugary sweet concoction, and Mysuru was the locale.
This accidental discovery delighted the royalties so much that it became the “royal sweet” of the palace in no time. A generous and humble ruler always thinks to serve and do well to his countrymen.
So, to let the commoners have a taste of this heavenly delicacy, the king instructed Madappa to open a sweet shop outside the palace premises.
Perhaps this was the legacy of “Guru Sweet Mart” at Sayyaji Road, Mysore, just 800 meters away from the Mysuru Palace. The sweet mart is currently managed by the 4th generation of the royal head cook Kakasura Madappa’s bloodline.
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The original way of serving or selling it is actually in a shapeless form like identical to halwa. But with time and public demand, it even got a shape to count in as pieces.
