We had a long conversation in the morning about cooking without onions. But,
for those who cannot do without them I wonder where has the art of making
vadagams disappear. Personally, I used to hate the smell of it going to pan
when my neighbours cooked in Arakkonam. For, that is where I had watched the
annual ritual of vadgam making even as we made rice and javvarisi vadams (sabudana
fryums) in summer.
Maybe some friends here know the recipe for it. It used to
be made of urad, channa dal, methi, chillies, and of course onions and garlic.
It is not like a city, Arakkonam in 70s and 80s was I can say very
"backward". Availability of vegetables and fruits were strictly
seasonal. So, when the onions were in plenty and cheap, neighbours made vadgams.
Forget onions, since that was not part of our menu. But, we bought cartloads of
the best mullu kathirikkais (brinjal) we can get, sun dry them for a rainy day.
Brinjals, bhendis, the humble gawar, all used to be
available in plenty during season and so all of them were bought in several
kilos and dried in hot sun. These local vegetables were mostly available round
the year, except for of course in the aippasi and kartigal when it used to be “adai
mazhai” (heavy rains) for a week non-stop when no vegetable vendor would be
coming around.
When it rained non-stop, I can't remember buying fresh
veggies. It used to be pepper kuzhambu, vatha kuzhambu, inji thogayal and fried
papads and vadams that used to come up on the plate. The tastiest of sambhars
believe me is the dried brinjal one and the karamani pulse. We never had to
take processions to municipal office next door, protesting price hike. Whatever
was available, stored for the rainy days was used.
The neighbours I could hear and later smell, taking a pinch
of the vadgams dried and stored and putting it in the oil to temper their
sambhars, keerai masiyals.
Another dried veggie in a slightly different format was made
from red pumpkin, bhopla or parangikkaai. This particular vathal along with
dried palakkottais (jack fruit seeds) used to the special ingredient in koottus
through the year.
We never had any exotic vegetable or fruit coming into town
those days. Even capsicum was a rarity as it used to come from Thanjavur
district and cauliflower, I saw it only in second year of college when I went
to Calcutta.
As kids, we ate all sorts of fruits and vegetables that came
from the countryside. From the bitter sweet kodukapulika, which was also our
own soothsayer predicting if we will pass the exams or not, small and tangy
eechanga, country dates in raw form, arai nellikkai, kacha guavas, kacha
mangoes as we never allowed them to stay in tree till it ripened.
Plums might show up in season travelling from Kodaikkanal,
as well as panneer drakshais. Summer brought bounteous mangoes, most of them
coming from nearby Andhra villages. If mangoes were in plenty one year, grand
mom would say “manginal mangai” so it may not rain much that year. The opposite
of that was “ponginal puli”, if tamarind grows in plenty it would be mean good
rains.
So, we went with seasons. Never, protested about
availability and non-availability of anything. Summer when milk would be scarce
our milk man would add some more water to it and keep up the supplies. There
was no cold storage those days and if we wanted milk at odd hours we had only
one door to knock at - palkara Velayudham. One day I was sent to his house, for
we had unexpected guests...Velayudham made me sit and went in search of his
cows to milch. Poor man, he came back unable to trace his cows. He apologized and
promised to bring home milk as soon as he found his cows.
When I see this drama over onions and scarcity I wonder if
it is only a city phenomenon. The greedy consumers of the cities driving
government to nuts over something which is not life threatening. Chasing the
governments to declare sugar as essential commodity one day and onions the
other. How did we lose the ability to save for the rainy day as our earlier
generations did. Or maybe I don't know what is real scarcity and just trying to
lecture. If so apologies.
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