Rice and Relationships

I have a very strong relationship with rice. I love it in all its forms. At its simplest, dressed with a little ghee (clarified butter) and salt, it reminds me of my mother: Steaming hot rice as an accompaniment to dal represents comfort and homecoming; cooked with spices and meat or vegetables, it becomes a special meal I can serve those I love. But our relationship did not start out that way.
 
At first, rice was like a polite acquaintance, something served on my plate as part of the daily meal. As a girl, I remember lamenting when “RDBS” was served. RDBS – roti (griddle-roasted flat bread), dal (spiced lentil curry), bhaat (steamed rice) and subzi (a vegetable dish) – was our childhood acronym for the “boring” staple homestyle Gujarati thali meal that we ate daily.

My only real request to my mother would be for laadi bhaat. Laadi means “floor” in Gujarati, my maternal tongue, and laadi bhaat was the name we gave to the rice from the bottom of the pan. In my mother’s house, rice was cooked in a pressure cooker, which resulted in the lowest layer, weighed down and in contact with the container, cooked into a solid, smooth and shiny surface, like polished marble. This rice, broken up and mashed with ghee (clarified butter) and a little salt, is something I associate with my mother even today. She would roll it into little “laddus” (balls) and feed us.

Through most of India, rice and wheat (from which rotis are made) are cereal grains that form the base of the Indian food pyramid. The way they are served and the combinations they are served in may change as you travel through the country, but they are the predominant carbohydrate component that fuels India. In fact, they are so valued and revered that they are incorporated into all our pujas (religious ceremonies) and prayers. Whenever the tilak (the auspicious red dot of blessing) is applied to anyone’s forehead, akshat (rice) accompanies it.

While rice and rotis are both essential to an Indian meal, at one point in my growing years I chose sides. Rice became the sort of friend who quietly listens without needing to say anything, preferable to rotis, which, like most breads, added an element of sweetness to anything I ate them with. Rice, in comparison, was gentler, becoming a vehicle for whatever I ate it with. Even today, my mother will prod me to have rotis when we dine together, but my loyalty to rice is unfailing. (What she doesn’t know is that I savour her dals and flavourful light curries most when they are combined with the simplicity of rice to showcase them.)

And my loyalty to rice paid off when I got married!  

As long as I was single, I never thought about my meals. Living in a large joint family, I was  simply required to be present at mealtime, choose what appealed and eat. Then one day, my indulged childhood ended: I found the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and crossed a threshold into my grown-up life. Now the responsibility for meals – the RDBS I had once groaned about – became mine. There was a problem, however: When we fall in love, we never take into account each other’s eating habits.

One of the qualities that define an Indian home’s cook is her ability to make rotis. Even the most untrained girls are proficient in this skill, but somehow I never learned – a decided handicap when you marry a man from North India, where wheat is the staple and the men are raised on robust diets of rotis and parathas. But I could not make rotis! My husband did not see this as a problem, but I felt that it was a failing.

But then rice came to my rescue: It unrolled its glory – in all its shapes, sizes, lengths, colours, flavours and perpetrations – riding to my rescue from every cuisine in India!  

The world knows India for its basmati rice, but our rice bowl is so much deeper! Rice is an ancient grain in India. During the Vedic period, India was home to 400,000 morphologically distinct species of rice. While experts estimate that 200,000 species have survived, only some 30,000 varieties are catalogued in gene banks scattered across the country. In his seminal work Indian Food: A Historical Companion, noted food historian K. T. Achaya writes of an age when every season in the year called for the consumption of a different rice! Over the years, I discovered the many types of rice I had access to: from more popular cultivars, unknown outside, to lesser-known ones.

The boundless varieties of rice were matched by a country’s worth of dishes to cook them into. As a new wife, I found a solution to every meal in rice: From homestyle dishes to festive favourites, rice offered a feast of flavours to dip into.

When coping with work, home and dinner was overwhelming, rice cooked into one-pot dishes, like the Gujarati Ek Top no Dal Bhat, which my grandmother taught me how to make. “Top” means vessel, and this dish was devised as a shortcut by housewives wanting to conserve time and energy in the kitchen. Baby vegetables, rice and lentils are layered and cooked together in one pot. Tendli or Vangi Bhaat was another fallback, a dish I learned from a Maharashtrian colleague. It combines tendli (ivy gourd) or vangi (small aubergines) with spices and rice into a fragrant, one-dish meal. Easily put together, great by itself or with a little natural yoghurt, it also makes a perfect lunch to take to work the next day.

On days when even those dishes were too much to contemplate, there was the cooling South Indian Curd Rice, in which rice and yoghurt are combined, tempered and served with a little pickle. Or there was warm comfort in Khichadi, on days when one of us was ill. In this one-dish meal that my husband perfected, lightly spiced lentils and rice are cooked together to a mush, served hot and topped with a dollop of ghee. Accompanied by a little mango pickle and Pappodams, it took away the blues. On chore-filled Sundays, rice became the fallback in the form of the Dhansaak of Parsi cuisine: Meat and lentils are cooked together and served over browned rice accompanied by meatballs and salad. We’d let the meat and lentils simmer away while we got all our Sunday chores done and then settle down to a leisurely meal, wash it down with Kingfisher beer and then take a long nap.

Rice even stood the test when I entertained. With its help, I have served feasts Gucchi (Morel) Pulao from Kashmir, Mughal-inspired Biryanis from all over India, Persian-influenced Polovs studded with jewel-red barberries, subtly spiced arrays of South Indian rice dishes flavoured with lemon, tomatoes or tamarind.
Rotis? Nobody has ever missed them!

And this afternoon, as I roll little laddus of boiled rice, dressed with a little ghee and salt, for my kids, I realize that I have come full circle with my faithful friend rice...