The first decision when someone hands you a box of Diwali sweetmeats might be whether to reach for the crunchy mithai or the piece of milk peera. The second is whether to save any for later.

In Guyana, sharing sweetmeats is part of how families celebrate the Hindu Festival of Lights. For some households, a portion of the sweets is set aside as an offering to Mother Lakshmi. Sweets are also packed for friends and neighbours, carrying the celebration beyond the homes where they were made. This year, Diwali falls on Sunday, November 8.

Mithai has a particularly Guyanese story. In India, the word refers broadly to sweets. Here, it has come to mean a specific treat made from fried dough coated in sugar. There’s the thin, crunchy kind and the thicker, chewier kind. For Guyanese food writer Alica Ramkirpal-Senhouse of Alica’s Pepperpot, mithai was something her family made in big batches for Diwali and other celebrations because there were always friends and relatives to share it with.

What else goes into the box depends on who’s cooking. Food writer Althea Brown of Metemgee remembers her grandmother Evelyn making milk peera, goja, gulgula, mithai and parsad for Diwali. Peera is a milk sweet, while the parsad Brown grew up with starts with flour toasted in ghee and stirred with sweetened, spiced milk. She still remembers the brown paper bags that held parsad at family prayers, stained by the ghee, with bits of the sweet clinging to the fruit packed alongside it.

Indian indentured labourers brought food traditions and religious practices to Guyana, where recipes and even the names of dishes took on local meanings over generations. That history is still there in a batch of sugar-coated mithai or a family recipe for parsad. And for the neighbour who gets a box on Sunday, the only thing left to decide is what to try first.