Raagi Bhakri is a favorite in our home. It’s easy to prepare and very filling. During this past visit to Kumta I replenished our stock of Raagi flour.
A few blocks from our place in Kumta is a little “girNi” (or mill) which grinds various types of flour. It is run by a distant relative ours; apparently everyone in Kumta is related to each other! And fortuitously for me, he was milling raagi flour that day. So here’s a little tour of the making of Raagi Flour.
Above – Shanbhag maam (in Kumta I call all elders by this honorific ~ we are all related, you see) poses with a bag of Raagi flour.
Raagi comes in these 110 lb bags and Shanbhag maam hauls these on his back.
My first look at whole raagi (Red millet or African millet).
In this simple contraption, the millet is ground. Through the homemade bellows in the foreground, the ground raagi collects in tin cans. The husk blows up through the pipe at the top and collects in the cloth bag in the back.
To cool, the ground raagi is heaped on newspapers on the floor, then hand filled in plastic bags and sealed. For a pittance I bought a couple of bags of raagi flour and carried them to our home here. On our dining table, raagi bhakri will appear more often. Yaay!
A closer look at the owner/manager/laborer/bag filler/cashier/cleaner/load hauler!
My Posts from Rural Karnataka:
Marathoner, Professor, Author, Citizen Journalist, Fitness Nut, Foodie, Meera's father, Hindu, Scientist, Photographer.
Dearest Arun..
Love for food and cooking brought me to ur website..
But i strtd learning a lot more thn food and m so grateful to you fer sharing all this wonderful lil things wid all of us online..
Take care .. And May God Bless..
Latha: Yes, certainly a treasure.
Wow what a wonderful post and lovely pictures! Its been ages since i saw this mill!
Lakshmi:
Fabulous to hear that! Way to go. Great to hear the traditional lifestyle rules
A few alleys down from our home in Colaba, Mumbai, a traditional girNi still thrives. We still get our wheat flour milled there and my dad got a few kgs of wheat flour for me to bring here. Sweet eh?
Psssst, I am just preparing a post on my trip to the Kapalishvara koyil in mylapore.
You know, even today the Mylapore Maamis get all flours milled. There’s a mill for every street!!
Ha hA Shilpa!
I am sure we could find some connection! Yaay!
)
Now I can say you are my relative!
guess you’ll have to call me Arun-dada or Arun-aNNa!
|
Okay..now I am thinking …are we both related? If everyone in Kumta is related to each other, then that shd apply for you and me too
).
Gopal!
Ha HA! you know you are always welcome ~ as long as you bring the two little ones!
)
thanks for the comment and the pics!
How did the birthday party go?
Arun,
Yummm, when I am being invited home for lunch? I love your photography skills – you can make something as simple as a milljust stand out – mixing the black and white pictures with the other ones just did the trick.
Gopal
SK
THanks for sharing your beautiful memories of the Konkan;
You are right, the idyllic life is fast disappearing but we may be able to do something about it;
I am hoping to spend more time with their school and else. Lets see how it goes.
Thanks
Arun,
My husband is happy with daalithoy and batate song , though I miss even the lovely temple communal meals.
Am a konkani/Ind Amer, living in the bay area for a decade. Lived in various parts of Karnataka till college and really miss the Amchi food now that I don’t make most of the tougher dishes
It is nice that we can document a lifestyle that is disappearing. I really enjoy the small town tales, sadly all the wealth of knowledge and experience is slowly being lost imo. So thanks for the pictures!
Keep posting them.
Thank you Asha for your honest thoughts about Prarthana (I did edit your comments – hope your don’t mind).
And yes, girNi appears to have been a part of all our lives while growing up. WOnder if the new kids will know any of this knowledge – perhaps they won’t need to. :-0
Best
Hi Arun, that machine brought back lot of memories. I used to go to the mill with our maid when I was a kid!
Great photos.
Hi Shoba ~
Thank you for your support.
Heh, looks like I will just miss you in Kumta; I will be there in July end!
send mail to
arunshanbhag AT gmail
and I can go meet your parents in Kumta
)
I don’t blog myself, but I am addicted to blog hopping. Found your blog when I was googling, and was very pleasantly surprised to read about Chittargi and the school that you are helping. Though I was born in Kumta, I was raised in Bellary and now I live in California. My parents have moved back to Chittargi, and I will be visiting them in August. I wanted to get in touch with you to find out ways, I can help with the school.What is the best way to get in touch with you ?
Hi SK;
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You are right. It appeared that he was making a large batch of these Raagi Flour packets for the local businesses. Then he’ll prolly switch to other grains.
And in a small town like Kumta, you will still find such girNis.
In mumbai, my father informed me that we still have a small girNi in Colaba Causeway where locals can get their grains milled. He promptly got 2 kgs of wheat flour made for me to bring here (he knows I am a big Chapatti fan!)
And getting the grains milled – i feel I am eating pure ingredients without any additives and preservatives; makes me appreciate our ancient foods that much more.
And you are right about the maam/mami; it is standard in rural kumta! Where are you from and what do you do now?
The guy is amazing in that he still runs a mill. It was common to use such services before but I think now people prefer buying preground stuff. Ragi is surely the food of the poor and actually it is the healthiest. The miller would only process ragi on certain days of the week. This is because he has to clean the machine thoroughly or else ragi powder will mix with the other flours and the result is a disaster for the cook with tough, hard chapatis! I too bought a packet last time and it was much cheaper than the Indian stores.
One thing though, we can always call people as maam/mayi and it doesn’t imply a relationship when none exists. It is just a respectful way to address strangers I guess while in your case you happened to be related.
hi Saroj:
When spending hot summers in rural karnataka, our grandmother used to make “raagi – neru” (raagi water) consisting of grinding roasted raagi with coconut and jaggery. supposedly a very ‘cooling’ drink. On my last visit to Kumta, I found it is even served in some of the local restaurants!
In marathi it is called “nachani” and I have seen recipes for laddoos too.
My favorite is the Raagi Bhakri I have linked to above, and here:
http://arunshanbhag.com/2007/11/13/raagi-bhakri/
Very easy to make! and VERY FILLING!
see the link for some nutritional info at the end.
It is a common staple of the poor and hardy!
Prachee here added a quick recipe for Nachani Kheer! Sounds Yumm!
Ooh I’ve never actually seen red millet. What kind of things do you normally make using red millet?
I get the feeling it’s used in Kerala too…but I’m not entirely familiar with it.
Thank you kindly, Jennifer -
and a very distant look, which tells me he has ‘experenced’ a lot in this life.
Best!
What beautiful eyes he has.