A hundred pots all cooking the same recipe — sweet pongal — yet the taste, aroma and the colour of each pot varied. Saturday saw a 100 traditional varieties of rice being cooked at Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya here.
Varieties explained
“We wanted to show the public that not everything white and polished is rice. Our traditional varieties have amazing properties. For instance, Mapilai samba is good for young bridegrooms, kulla kaar is good for those with obesity, Karun Kuruvai has properties like Kaayakalpam ,” explained Menaka Thilakarajan, who runs MannVasanai, an organic food outlet that makes value added products using traditional rice varieties.
The cookout was organised by MannVasanai in memory of P. Thilakarajan, an organic farming enthusiast, who passed away last year. “It was my husband who got me interested in traditional varieties. He left his job in an insurance firm after he met Nammalwar Iyah,” added Ms. Menaka.
People like Deepa, who is from a family of farmers in Arani, said she took part in the event after her brother, who is into organic farming, told her about it.
“It is nice to see so many people cook pongal at a place,” she said despite sitting in the smoke from the burning of firewood.
Her neighbour C.A. Payal, a transperson, who runs a catering unit in Choolaimedu, said if she had a bit more of jaggery and if she had been able to roast the cashews and raisins in ghee, her preparation using sigappu kaar rice would have tasted better. “I make biryani for weddings along with friends. Having learnt it from my aachi at home, I cook 100kg-200kg quite easily,” she said.
The event was organised with the help of volunteers including Malathi. “Since it is a worthy cause, many of us stepped in to help. We formed a WhatsApp group and discussed ideas and helped Ms. Menaka. It was fun,” she said.
