The most popular gift is mithai (Indian sweets), and shops are filled with a spectacular array specially prepared for this festival, from thickly cut squares of barfi (a fudge-like sweet, often coated with a thin film of edible silver leaf) , to soft syrupy gulab jamuns (deep-fried balls of dough) and spongy rasgullas (sweetened cream cheese balls flavoured with rose water).
Continuing the theme of found food, a soft-shell crab is presented as an edible beach treasure, surrounded by amaranth grains for sand and brown-butter sauce for seawater.