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Digs at South Indian
eating habits have long since stopped being funny and many a Tamilian
is known to have taken umbrage at being referred to as an
idle-sambhar specimen, a rice eating sloth whose languour is
attributed to his food habits. Why not poke fun (clean wholesome fun)
at our channa bhature-dal-roti brothers? I still remember vividly
my acute embarrassment at the dining table as a young bride. My
in-laws after years of residence in the north, plainly scoffed at the
eating habits of the south. Se how she loves her rice was the open
remark and imagine enjoying it with dollops of sambhar and ghee to go
with it! I remember blushing with shame, and valiantly trying to much
chapattis to gain their approval. Fortunately I was as thin as a
beanpole and my frame gave scant evidence to my partiality to rice!
Much older and wiser
today, I respect and marvel at the infinite variety of food
specialities in every region, adopted probably due to climatic
variations and the respective availability of grain in each province.
In a recent Food and Nutrition Conference in Germany, the typical
vegetarian south Indian menu was acclaimed the most nutritive.
Rice, of course is the
staple food of the south Indian. Excepting very cosmopolitan
families, its presence is felt in some form or the other in every
meal. In south India, after the rice is cooked the water or conjee
is drained. Packed with nourishment, the working class downs it
with a pinch of salt-a real filler to stave off those premature
hunger pangs. Warmed and poured over the legs, rice conjee is
supposed to alleviate pain in the legs. Lightly soaked and ground to
a powder rice flour has infinite uses. Steamed and mixed with sugar
and a little ghee, it makes rice puttu for tiffin. A small amount
added to gram flour paste, it helps make crisp bajjis or
pakoras. Ground rice flour paste can be utilized to create varieties
of dosas and of course with the fright proportions of ground lentils,
it lends itself to the making of the standard idli and dosas after
fermentation. Rice is used also for payasam, a thick sweet
soup specially concocted during festivals.
During festivals and
marriage feasts, as children we really looked forward to eating on
banana leaves. Hot food served on the leaves had a special flavour of
its own and what joy it was dispensing with tiresome cutlery and
eating with the hands for once, we were allowed to lick our fingers
and slurp our way through the meal.
The sweet is served first
is served first on the leaf for all festive occasions, as you are
expected to sweeten hour tongue before you proceed with the rest of
the meal. There is, of course a glob of the ubiquitous pickle.
After the preliminaries, the main course of rice either a pre-mixed
rice, or rice with gravy, rice with rasam and a large helping of
curds. No meal is ever complete in a south India home without
curd-rice and pickle which is recommended as an invalid diet, minus
the pickle of course.
So much for the
vegetarians. The non-vegetarian Tamilian is an finicky about his
meals as his Punjabi counterpart and it is a fallacy that most south
Indians are born vegetarians. The Chettinad food which is today
publicized and increasingly popular bears striking similarity to
Mudaliar food which is not so well known but equally tasty. Their
non-vegetarian food is non-gresy lightly spiced and a gourmet’s
delight. Present day tastes have led to a drastic reduction in the
use of chillies. Pepper chops, chicken curry, keema vadas, meat
ball curries, etc for some of the exotic fare of the Tamils. In the
old days, ragi was popular and cooked ragi balls were prepared
to be eaten with the hot curries. Indeed, eating ragi (made into,
balls with the fingers) are dipped into the curry and swallowed,
without muching!
The non-vegetarian Tamils
have their regular vegetarian days- Saturdays, a day for Venkatesh
Perumal(Balaji), Thursdays for Baba and so on. Meat is usually not
prepared on kirthigai or Amavasai- certain phases of the moon. I know
that even today, certain families fact during eclipse and either mop
or wash the house after it is over. The pregnant woman lies still
during the eclipse with the curtains drawn, for superstition holds
that she begets a malformed child if she indulges in activity.
What is most charming in
a close knit family is the way the young are fed on family occasions
in conventional households. An elderly lady sits with a vessel in
which she has mixed rice and curry, mashing the rice with her fingers
and tempering it with ghee to subdue the pungency if any. Sitting in
a semi-circle around her are the little tots- their eyes wide with
wonder with the stories that Periyamma tells them. With unerring
accuracy she pops large balls of rice in each mouth, and virtually
unable to protest they much away, their cheeks ballooning with the
food, their entire concentration on the food their entire
concentration on the tales she regales them with. Automatically,
their little mouths open when they are empty, like little birds
waiting to be fed.
Food is such an integral
part of daily life-but with all the major issues surfacing today, one
is prompted to ask the question of our family and friends –“Do
you eat to live, or live to eat?”
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