2012 is the year of the millet. This is not according to the chinese calendar but as per new year tips from nutritionists and dieticians to clients, patients and customers and newspaper readers who form part of the one percent and are on the look out for suggestions that will qualitatively improve their lives. Millets are cereal like foods, and are no longer as well known as the two staples, wheat and rice that the world has veered towards over the previous century. In fact in the years that we grew up, we thought of ourselves as a rather evolved family as far as food was concerned. Our parents moved to New Delhi from The South of India and rice and its variations was our morning and noon staple. In the evenings we nodded at North Indian cuisine by consuming chappatis and paranthas, occasionally even venturing in the direction of makki and missi rotis. Poories,( enunciated as boories in South India) were occasional fare, viewed with suspicion and consumed with joy unpunctuated by gloom since the calorific value of the oil sploshed in our food was yet to be tabulated and white polished rice and white bread were regular visitors on the kitchen shelf.
Our favourite day of the week was saturday afternoon, when we returned from our not so public school,( government aided, and six day week) The Delhi Tamil Association. Dad was home from work( from a corporate job that allowed its employees two saturdays off and two half day saturdays) and usually pottering about, not in the absent minded way of story book fathers, but busying himself with the preparation of dosas. He boiled potatoes and minced onions which were then cooked together for the masala and ladled out the dosa batter on large flat iron tavas that he had got customized for the purpose. Endless saturdays we ate large, fragrant ghee roasted, crisp and thin dosas, which dad rolled out and served with aplomb. When we had visitors, this could be office colleagues or relatives, dad would roll out dosas, while mom chipped in as chef's assistant, getting the batter, chutney and sambaar ready each time. Those saturdays have long gone by but my siblings and I learnt to love food and enjoy preparing it since within our household there were no gender specific kitchen roles.
Dad turned all of eighty a few months ago and can still make a "mean masala dosa' and delicious difficult to make rava dosas.. In fact both my children insist that "Thatha's masal dosa" and "Paati's molahapodi" taste much better than what I dish out and always hope to get a raise out of me. Of late, coping with my son's oil-free expectations , which began with paranthas and toast and have now extended to the hapless dosa, I have incorporated dad's not so recent innovation with the dosa batter. To a quantity of approximately 700 ml of dosa batter, (which can make 10 large dosas) , I add one tablespoon of gingelly oil and mix thoroughly. This batter when ladled on to a hot greased skillet requires no further addition of oil. Discounting the invisible oil already mixed into the batter, what we get are oil free dosas. I make dosas with ragi and bajra and barley, (substituting rice flour with millet) and the oil trick works fine with all of these as well. Yet I struggle with the cultural racism that is so deeply ingrained in our food habits. White rice is prettier and more shapely than brown rice. Dosas made with white rice are apparently better looking. Iddlis with white rice are more attractive to the eye. Bhaturas with maida are lighter of complexion than those made with Aata. Cakes with maida are softer than cakes made with aata.. Meanwhile ragi dosas that are the colour of oil stained pink sandstone and bajra dosas that turn mud green are termed coarse and unattractive. And so the litany continues...... Eventually, hunger and the flavour of the food renders all protest irrelevant.The supposedly coarse millet which is sold at and bought from special niche stores is a lot more expensive than white rice and white bread, and also takes longer to cook, which is possibly another reason for its low acceptance in urban households, all of which live from time crunch to time crunch.
I belong officially to a generation that struggles with the absence of knowledge on how to use millets in everyday cooking and despairs at getting the young to eat up their millets. I wonder whether this nutrient dense food continues to be accessible at all to people who fall outside the privileged one percent Hopefully, close to the lands where they grow, in homes where there is enough to eat, millets are cooked in a variety of ways . Thenai and keyveragu form part of porridges, both sweet and savoury in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. I have eaten delicious bajre ki roti with kachre ki chutney at Dundlod in Rajasthan. At LMB in Jaipur one gets mouthwatering bajre churma roasted in ghee and flavored with nuts and cardamom. At Lingsur In Northern Karnataka we feasted on bajra and jaun rotis and ate some delicious bajra holiges, stuffed with peanut and jaggery paste and this was local fare at very affordable rates. In New Delhi roasted amaranth ladoos have been stocked at the local grocers all through the cold season, well before niche stores began supplying amaranth at extraordinary prices. Makke ki roti with saag or gur is another well loved seasonal food. So are kuttu dipped potato pakoras and the jhankar or bhagar kheer and chawal made during the vrats around the navratras in North India. Incidentally, India is one of the larger producers of millets the world over. May the tribe of millet consumers in our country increase yearly!
Our favourite day of the week was saturday afternoon, when we returned from our not so public school,( government aided, and six day week) The Delhi Tamil Association. Dad was home from work( from a corporate job that allowed its employees two saturdays off and two half day saturdays) and usually pottering about, not in the absent minded way of story book fathers, but busying himself with the preparation of dosas. He boiled potatoes and minced onions which were then cooked together for the masala and ladled out the dosa batter on large flat iron tavas that he had got customized for the purpose. Endless saturdays we ate large, fragrant ghee roasted, crisp and thin dosas, which dad rolled out and served with aplomb. When we had visitors, this could be office colleagues or relatives, dad would roll out dosas, while mom chipped in as chef's assistant, getting the batter, chutney and sambaar ready each time. Those saturdays have long gone by but my siblings and I learnt to love food and enjoy preparing it since within our household there were no gender specific kitchen roles.
Dad turned all of eighty a few months ago and can still make a "mean masala dosa' and delicious difficult to make rava dosas.. In fact both my children insist that "Thatha's masal dosa" and "Paati's molahapodi" taste much better than what I dish out and always hope to get a raise out of me. Of late, coping with my son's oil-free expectations , which began with paranthas and toast and have now extended to the hapless dosa, I have incorporated dad's not so recent innovation with the dosa batter. To a quantity of approximately 700 ml of dosa batter, (which can make 10 large dosas) , I add one tablespoon of gingelly oil and mix thoroughly. This batter when ladled on to a hot greased skillet requires no further addition of oil. Discounting the invisible oil already mixed into the batter, what we get are oil free dosas. I make dosas with ragi and bajra and barley, (substituting rice flour with millet) and the oil trick works fine with all of these as well. Yet I struggle with the cultural racism that is so deeply ingrained in our food habits. White rice is prettier and more shapely than brown rice. Dosas made with white rice are apparently better looking. Iddlis with white rice are more attractive to the eye. Bhaturas with maida are lighter of complexion than those made with Aata. Cakes with maida are softer than cakes made with aata.. Meanwhile ragi dosas that are the colour of oil stained pink sandstone and bajra dosas that turn mud green are termed coarse and unattractive. And so the litany continues...... Eventually, hunger and the flavour of the food renders all protest irrelevant.The supposedly coarse millet which is sold at and bought from special niche stores is a lot more expensive than white rice and white bread, and also takes longer to cook, which is possibly another reason for its low acceptance in urban households, all of which live from time crunch to time crunch.
I belong officially to a generation that struggles with the absence of knowledge on how to use millets in everyday cooking and despairs at getting the young to eat up their millets. I wonder whether this nutrient dense food continues to be accessible at all to people who fall outside the privileged one percent Hopefully, close to the lands where they grow, in homes where there is enough to eat, millets are cooked in a variety of ways . Thenai and keyveragu form part of porridges, both sweet and savoury in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. I have eaten delicious bajre ki roti with kachre ki chutney at Dundlod in Rajasthan. At LMB in Jaipur one gets mouthwatering bajre churma roasted in ghee and flavored with nuts and cardamom. At Lingsur In Northern Karnataka we feasted on bajra and jaun rotis and ate some delicious bajra holiges, stuffed with peanut and jaggery paste and this was local fare at very affordable rates. In New Delhi roasted amaranth ladoos have been stocked at the local grocers all through the cold season, well before niche stores began supplying amaranth at extraordinary prices. Makke ki roti with saag or gur is another well loved seasonal food. So are kuttu dipped potato pakoras and the jhankar or bhagar kheer and chawal made during the vrats around the navratras in North India. Incidentally, India is one of the larger producers of millets the world over. May the tribe of millet consumers in our country increase yearly!
You must have been really good at these creative writing activities at school when you had to write essays on given topics, isn't it? You give the impression of one who has something to say about everything!! And so this is the story behind your food-loving personality! And so cute it was- half saturday holidays and a Wodehousian pottering father! Especially good to know the genderless kitchen duties of your parents. :) And I am glad I recognised atleast LMB from your long list!
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