Story of the Cinderella Cereal
CONVERSATION BETWEEN Baa, a 75 year old retired school teacher and Ragini, her 20 something granddaughter, who is being trained to be ‘a new-age’ nutritionist. Ragini is a student of a top ranking college and stays in a hostel. She has come to visit Baa.
Baa: (enters and sets down a dish of snacks on the table) Ahh...I was waiting for you since the morning. Got delayed, did you? You missed your lunch again. Here, have some of these. Made them just for you.
Ragini: Yes, I am starved. (picks up a handful and puts it in her mouth) Mmmm…delicious. You know these are my favourite, don’t you? How do you manage to make them taste so different from the packaged stuff we get in the market, Grandma?
Baa: (smiles) Magic, sweetheart.
Ragini: Yeah, you do have the magic touch, don’t you? The simple meals you cook up in that little kitchen of yours taste heavenly. I yearn for them, you know. Even the fancy dishes in the restaurants aren’t half as good, even though they swim in oil!
Baa: Okay, enough Ragini… Now tell me about yourself. Last time you told me you were finalising the topic for your final year thesis. Have you made up your mind yet?
Ragini: Yes I have. I want to be a Dietician cum Health expert. In fact, I want to further narrow it down to women’s health issues—especially those concerning women living below the poverty level.
Baa: (smiles) Okay, ‘Rags’, my future nutrition expert, why don’t you tell me what nutrients our women need to stay active and healthy?
Ragini: (absentmindedly munching the food in front of her) At the top of my head I can think of, iron, calcium, high fibre, proteins, vitamins.
Baa: (smiles as she speaks) The stuff that you just put in your mouth contains all that and more.
Ragini: (stops munching and sits up) Really? What are these murukus made of? rice? flour? wheat?
Baa: Wrong, wrong and wrong! They are made of Korra or foxtail millets.
Ragini: (spluttering in surprise) What? Aren’t millets poor man’s food? They are labelled as coarse cereals in our field of study – so I thought their nutritional value was very low.
Baa: (shakes her head resignedly) Not only you my dear, so many others–older and supposedly wiser than you–make the same mistake. In fact, they are a storehouse of nutrients. They contain the secret formula of how an agricultural labourer can put in hours of back breaking work living on just two meals a day. I guess in your Dietician’s diary you can put them down as low-fat, high fibre diets.
Ragini: (eagerly sitting up) And I have never given a serious thought to the humble millet till now..!!!! Do tell me more about them Baa.
Baa: Millets are grown all over India. They are the hardiest of all cereals and can be cultivated in semi arid terrains which receive bare minimum rainfall. So you will find millet crops in every corner of our country. And each region has its own name for it in the local language. There are five Millet crops which are the best known and most widely used. They are Bajra (Pearl Millet) Jowar (Sorghum) Korra (Foxtail Millet) Saama (Little Millet) and Raagi (Finger Millet).
Ragini: So are they like the ‘Fab Five’?
Baa: (smiling) Yes Ragini, you can call them that. You can do your research on each of these individually and find out how rich they are in nutritional value as compared to the not so coarse cereals like rice and wheat. In fact, I and many who belong to my generation grew up on a millet diet.
Ragini: So are millets the secret of your young skin and healthy hair? And the fact that you have to take no medicines at all to ward off common ailments like arthritis, breathing disorders etc?
Baa: May be. All I know is that my mother would make bajri na rotla everyday for our meals. Recently I read in the papers that dieticians these days advise health conscious youngsters to take Beta-carotene supplements and capsules for glowing skin and strong bones. Now come on make a guess...what is the richest natural source of Carotene? (Winks)
Ragini: Bajri na rotla ? No way!
Baa: But its true! Bajra or Pearl millet contains 132mg of carotene per 100gm. That is not all. As a budding health expert you must know that diabetes is emerging as such a serious menace now. Even the very young (mostly those living in cities), who consume high carbohydrate diet, are being treated for it. Korra (that you are eating now), is the ideal cereal for such people. It is known to release a high level of energy into the bloodstream, but with minimum sugar content. Saama (little millet), too, is low on fat and high on fiber. So you get the strength, without having to deal with the fat deposits. Isn’t that what all you young people yearn for?
Ragini: Yes we do. But Baa if all this is known to you, then why have we stopped eating millets? Why is it no longer in our daily diet?
Baa: Millet was a food that was locally available then. Now we have shops and fancy stores selling us fruits, vegetables and cereals from all over the world.
Ragini: Then why aren’t millets packaged and sold like our other grains?
Baa: This is a rather complex issue. Let me try to explain. You see, our government needs to feed a mammoth and rapidly growing population. So it has introduced the Public Distribution System, which is a policy of providing cheap ration to the poor. Now, under this system, the government has been selling only rice and wheat across the country for over three decades. This well intentioned scheme has, however, had a disastrous impact on the drylands and biodiversity of our country. Because it has completely disrupted the traditional food habits of people. Even those communities, which used to eat sorghum and millets, have gradually switched over to rice or wheat. As a result thousands of hectares of land, that were earlier used to grow millets, have moved over to other crops. And the farms that are not suitable for cereals like rice and wheat now lie fallow.
Korra Murukulu
INGREDIENTS.gif)
METHOD
Sieve both the flour together. Add cumin seed, salt, chilli powder, Sesame seeds and mix well. Heat 50 ml oil and pour the hot oil into this mixture. Mix well with a spoon. Make into a stiff dough using hot water. Make murukus by using muruku maker Heat 1/2 litre oil in a pan, and deep fry murukus until they turn brown. Cooking time: 20 mins.
Sama Kichidi
INGREDIENTS.gif)
METHOD
Wash and chop onion, chillies and greens. Clean and wash Green gram dal and soak for half an hour. Take a big clean vessel and heat the oil. Add the seasoning seeds (mustard and cumin seeds), curry leaf, chopped onion, ginger garlic paste, greens and green gram dal. Allow it to fry well, add salt to taste and add water (two liters of water to 1 kg. Little millet). Cover the vessel with a lid and allow to boil. Wash Little millet and pour it in the vessel. Stir well, cover with a lid, and cook to a firm
consistency on a steady flame. Cooking time: 10 mins.
Ragini: But that is so tragic.
Baa: Yes indeed it is. Because loss of biodiversity has a deeper, more serious fallout… it is a loss of our culture. It is a loss of the food we used to eat and the customs related to it.
Ragini: Wow, Baa. No wonder you were such a good teacher.
Baa: (smiles) I am an old woman, Ragini. But I have not lost touch with the world outside. Isn’t Climate Change being projected as the most sinister threat to the survival of our planet today? Let me tell you, in a harsh, uncertain future where natural resources like water and soil will be at a premium, millets will survive. Because they are more resilient than the new-age varieties of grains we see in the market today. They require very little water and need only farm yard manure (cow dung) to survive. In fact, millets do not respond to chemical fertilizers at all….
Ragini: So is our Government coming up with new strategies and fresh policies for such a future?
Baa: (sighs) Well, I have heard that agricultural scientists are looking at various options. But nothing much is changing on the ground. I was talking to Maniben (baa’s old maid) the other day. Her brother has a few acres of land in the village. She says it is still easier for the farmers to get credit and loans from banks for crops such as rice, sugarcane, horticulture and cotton. Farmers who plan to grow millets and sorghum on their fields do not get any such support.
Ragini: So farmers are constantly under pressure to switch to crops which need more water and more chemical fertilizers?
Baa: Sounds strange and illogical, doesn’t it? But its true. And I have not even finished telling you about the benefits of growing millets yet! Ask Maniben and she will tell you that the crop husk and by-products of millets make excellent fodder for cattle. So farmers who grow it do not need to buy fodder from the market. Millet wastes are used as fuel in a rural household also.
Ragini: (scratching her head) Millet as a crop has an amazing variety of uses, huh?
Baa: It is one of the most versatile grains that we know of, Ragini. I know the adjective sounds a little odd here, but that is the only way I can describe it. Just think. Growing millet can actually ensure a security blanket for a poor farmer. It provides him with crop, fodder, fuel and food. (Shakes her head) And look how much damage we have done to it in the name of ‘farming advances’.
Ragini: (agitatedly waving her hands) Why isn’t something being done to change the mindset of the people? For instance, can’t the media take this issue up?
Millet are the livelihood source of poor tribal and Dalit women and marginalised farmers. Modern eating habits and market trends have sidelined this immensely resilient and hardy grain. The trend needs to change. NOW!
Baa: On the contrary. If you look at the glossy commercials on foodstuff, you will find all of them promote rice and wheat. So you cannot blame the rural poor if they have started believing that what they eat is inferior in status, and slowly abandoning their own foods!
Ragini: (gives her grandma a hug) Don’t worry my darling. My generation will know better. Thanks to a handful of wise ones like you. So you are looking at the most sought after Nutritionist of the future, who will have the entire country under the spell of the Millet! I will turn our ragged, neglected Cinderella Cereal into a fairy princess. I promise.
Baa: (pats Ragini’s cheeks) Ahh..why not? In the meantime, let me tempt my fancy diet expert with some more tasty millet morsels. Lets go and cook up some paunkh… you know the millet-made popcorn that you adore. And Maniben can make some tea. (Hand in hand, chatting and laughing, they walk into the kitchen)
- Chiteisri Devi
