A power packed summer breakfast from the past

A special food we resort to during summers is an ancient traditional breakfast called "Pazheya saada kanji". Especially when we have elders at home who are rich in traditional wisdom , you can never escape this kanji (gruel)."Pazheya saada kanji" literally means gruel of leftover  rice.  A simple and humble breakfast which is often ridiculed as a poor man’s life style food.   A wonderful  healthy food which is a power house of vitamins.

In olden days and even now, farmers and laborers who did lot of physical work ate this rice which gave them sustained energy with all natural nutritional supplements.  It is so soothing for the intestines especially during the  summers and acts as a coolant for your body.

This is an easy to make breakfast, especially when the summer heat turns your kitchen into an oven. All  you have to do is cook extra rice, add water when cool  and  allow it to ferment overnight ( not in fridge).  Generally we use a stone vessel called 'kal chatty' to store the rice.  Next day morning the rice gets fermented by the healthy  bacteria(not all bacteria are bad) and this fermented rice is then mashed well with the fermented water  and with addons likebuttermilk, salt or asafoetida and the resultant kanji(gruel)   tastes yummy. You can even add finely chopped shallots(baby onions), ginger  and  top with one or two ice cubes.

Come summer,  I and my husband narrate 'pazheya saada' stories to our children. 

During my summer vacations at my  grandparents home. Our Paati(grand mom) used to cook extra rice at night so that the next day her 10 grandchildren could have this for breakfast.  It is a practice in semi orthodox homes that without having the bath nobody could eat freshly cooked brunch(offered as bhog to god) and we cousins got up late and had our bath late, so paati decided to make this pazheya saadam  for all of us. The fermented water would be drained to a different vessel and  our aunt would then mix the rice, curds and salt. The resultant curd rice would be distributed to all the ten of us. We would all get a vadu manga( baby mangoes brined)  which we would place in a small plate. Our perimma( my mom’s older sister) would then  place a morsel of  Pazheya saadam on our palm. Each of us would take a bite of mango piece and then gobble the rice. This practice of offering morsels on palm was called ‘Kaila podruthu(tamil) or Kai tutthu(kannada).  It was so much fun to eat the food this way and it helped forge a bond between all of us. All of us would gobble the morsel and compete to stretch our palms. This  daily breakfast practice has nestled in the crevice of our heart so strongly that whenever we cousins meet together we ask  our mami , mom or aunt to offer us food like this.  Such sweet memories.

My husband too recalls to our children how his grand mom would store the food in a kalchatti and he would come after his playtime in the afternoon and drink the water after mixing this with buttermilk and salt . He says to my children that this is a super energizer  which no Gatorade(sport drink) can match and is excellent to reduce your body heat.

Another positive point about this breakfast is that the trillions of bacteria  will produce  lot of B complex vitamins , Vit K and B12 which is a good source for vegetarians.  These healthy and friendly Bacteria  help extract calories from what we eat, help store calories for later use and provide energy and nutrients for the production of new bacteria to continue this work. So eating this paaniwala chawal/ fermented rice/ pazheya saadam  is a great energizer and coolant. 

An ancient breakfast and a wonderful healty  food which is now sadly ignored in modern times but I have introduced this to my children to beat the  hyderabadi summer heat.

So along with tender coconut water, panna, khus juice, barley lemonade, chaas this is another coolant we resort to.

                                      Fermented rice gruel ( mixed with mint chutney)

(fermented curd rice seasoned and garnished  with an addon sundried and fried curd chilli)

A picnic memory that never fades

Indiblogger has lined up  sponsored contests and each week i get mails on interesting topics and this topic on an incredible experience  threw me back in time to a road trip that happened in the  summer of 98, my memory of this  trip will never fade.

Why??!!

Read ahead.....
My mom’s younger sisters stayed in the north and it was more than three long years since the sisters all met together. So after a long gap the sisters met at my parents place at Bangalore. During their stay, my dad and aunts had planned for a picnic so that we could have some outdoor fun. I who was alone at that time( my husband was on deputation) decided to join my parents, younger sis and my aunts for the fun one day outing along with my 1.5 year old daughter.


We hired a car to fit us all in. Our destination was Mekedatu, a picnic spot 90kms from Bangalore. Around Bangalore, there is no dearth for weekend getaways or picnic spots and so Mekedatu was one such idyllic and scenic spot. Mekedatu ( meaning Goat’s leap in kannada) is a deep gorge so narrow that many presume that once shepherds allowed their goat’s to cross the gorge and so it was called goat’s leap or mekedatu( in kannada meke is goat and datu is leap).


To reach mekedatu one has to travel through kanakapura taluk and reach the banks of River Sangama. The place where two rivers Cauvery and Arkavati merge. We too reached the banks of the river. It is the last motorable point to reach Mekedatu, so we got down. The driver instructed us that we had to cross the broad sandy river bed and walk another 4 kms up into the forest after the other bank to reach the gorge. We all chitchatted, picked up the shells from the broad sandy river bed and leisurely walked over to the other bank and were gearing up to climb the muddy track that lead into the forest, that’s when we heard loud cries and shrieks. Taken aback, we turned around to find water flooding the river bed which we just crossed. The water gushed in such great force that in no time it filled the depth of the bed and was close to the banks. 3 people who were just crossing at that point were rescued by the locals there.


The gates of the river water which was dammed upstream was opened and hence the flash floods, generally there is an alert before the opening of the gates. Anyways, we aborted our trek to Mekedatu and were stranded with 20 other picnickers awaiting our rescue now. The village boy who was amongst our midst said that the only way to cross was either to swim or wait till the tenders for the coracles were finalized which would happen only by 5.00p.m.


Thankfully before noon,buckling to our pressure, two locals rescued us in the coracles. We heaved a sigh of relief when we reached our car, though disappointed at not reaching Mekedatu. We sat in the car sending our prayers up and thanking our luck,  what if we had been held in the forceful water while we were happily picking up the shells.


But wait, another adventure in store for us.

 Disappointed at not reaching Mekedatu, we decided to go to Mutthathi another picnic spot which is closeby . Mutthathi is a small village on the banks of river Kaveri. The road to mutthathi runs along the river and you can stop at places to spend time on the bank and dip your feet in the shallow side of the river. Many urban souls  camp  under the shady trees to make tea on chulha and barbecue their prized river catches here.This place is close to the Cauvery wildlife sanctuary and you have a lovely fishing camp called Bheemeshwari which is famous for the Mahseer fish where you now  have facilities for angling, river rafting, camping in log huts  etc.,  This is a famous shooting spot for films.


The driver drove through a bypass route to reach Mutthathi. It was a muddy moundy track where we find some kuccha huts. We enquired a few people who told there was no route that way to mutthathi. But our driver who had been here before, was confident and drove over the muddy moundy track telling that he could see a temple there and there must be a short way to reach that place. Just as he was pointing to the direction of the temple, the driver missed the track and swerved to a slopy downhill track. On my side I could find deep valley down ahead. The driver calmly tried to reverse the vehicle with great care and here on the back seat I was all panicky. I told him we will get down from the other door side and then he could bring the vehicle up. He told me to calm down for sometime and slowly and skilfully reversed the vehicle and swerved towards the temple side. Those fifteen minutes, I and my folks never realized the intensity  of the situation, because of our confident driver.


On reaching the plains, the driver said had we got down, the vehicle could have easily slipped into the valley and it was the weight of the people which held the car.We were shocked and numbed, with no more mood for fun or frolic, we thanked our God, lucky stars and the driver for saving us from a mishap.We drove back to our city to reach home by 3.00p.m


We recently drove to Bheemeswari (mutthathi) and found the muddy track has been replaced by a pucca tar road albeit with potholes.But the memory of this trip never fades, whenever we all meet, we recall the journey of this picnic which never reached its destination .

This post exclusively written for Indiblogger's ' Incredible experience'.

                                The gorge at mekedatu (Pic courtesy : google images)