Among the trinity of south Indian delicacies — idli, upma, dosai — ‘idli' has been pronounced to be not an indigenous item in your Science and Technology supplement some time ago, much to the lasting regret of South Indian ‘mamis'. Upma has won accolades in a world competition in the U.S. after a chef rustled up an incredibly edible concoction with upma ingredients and walked away with the first prize amounting to thousands of dollars.
But it is the dosa which has entered the Guinness Book of Records due to its enormous length. Regarding the majesticity of the item, there are eateries that have come up with umpteen varieties of dosa.
What an ordinary citizen other than a South Indian does not know is the magical and multitude ways one can handle the dosa batter as it gets better and better after a few days of storage in or out of the refrigerator when it gets more and more fermented and collects more probiotics. On day one of grinding, one has a bland dosa. Come the second day, it attains its royal splendour and can be experimented as wafer-thin dosai (paper dosai).It can be ‘murugal' (pyrolised). It is masala dosai, when stuffed with different curries and presented on a plate in a standing and outstanding conical shape.
On the third day with the yeast working wonders, it assumes the form of ‘oothappam' (in Tamil), a fat cousin of dosa.
Next day, it is converted as ‘Guliyappa' (Kannada) ‘pongadalu'(Telugu) ‘kulipanniyaram'(Tamil). A special contraption is used to make these fried delicacies. Lastly, the dosas leftover are torn into bits and called ‘pitchu dosai'. Bread pieces dipped in the batter are steamed and called ‘bread dosai.'
The dosa thus manifests itself into different forms as the days roll by. I believe no other item is preserved this long and caters to the family breakfast. It is really “dosa”-avatharam!
(The writer's email id is ramachandrar@hotmail.com)
Keywords: south Indian dishes, dosa varieties
@P.S.Srinivas: I am amazed that after you have read this article you suggest that "all women must read and prepare", as if cooking is the sole job of women!
As for the many delicious ways in which the dosa can be made, I have come across a cheese-filled dosa in Cape Town, South Africa, which was stuffed with masala too! Absolutely delicious! I would recommend a melting cheese like Cheddar or Gruyere to fill the dosa!
More than anything else, Ramachandra Rao has brought on the surface the latent techniques of Dosa . If one could stretch his/her imagination he could visualize the R &D (research & Development) acumen of the South Indian Mamis and 'paattis'of the yester years. Mind you such researches might have started when the Refrigerators were not all a household name !In a crude connotation, the so-called 'research' might have been termed as a 'trial & error' method. Nevertheless whenever we make or see the various manifestations of 'dosa' it is time to sweetly remember the'veterans' whose identity has lost in oblivion. I wish whenever we taste dosa's other versions &different from the ordinary viz. Saada Dodai, it is appropriate to salute the unknown!
Bouquets toHINDU for arranging such dialogues on interesting subjects. The article on dosa was highly informative to me. I have taken the different types from my house and from restaurants ,but the fermentation process and other details gave valuable inputs to me and to my family members to prepare the different types and enjoy the different avatars to our advantage and enjoyment. The comments by Sri. SVV would go to prove that he is a humorist in a nation of humorists ( source. Oliver Goldsmith) and I am now mentally seeing the experiments resorted to me by mrs Rao every day, to make her husband happy in life.
Thanks for this curious essay on dosa-avataram. Our dough always gets over in 2 days, so I have never experimented with the dough of day 3 or day 4... would be tempted to try it for the probiotics, but I believe they are rendered null and void once cooked. Anyone know? And about the comments: The comments leave me baffled - baffled!
When a man writes an article about the many avatars of dosa, should he not be congratulated for his skills in the kitchen? Should he not serve as a role model, encouraging more men to practice the culinary arts? Instead we find one commenter imagining not the author, but the author's wife struggling to prepare these varieties. And another exhorting all women to learn to do so ... When will men who read an article by a man about making dosas see that in fact a man is making dosas. (Would it have been in the news otherwise?)
A very nice paper on dosa, and that too after deep research. I have tasted different types of dosas from different locations, but I have no expertise on this. Dr Damodaraswami Naidu of Annappurna introduced the family dosa at Coimbatore several years back and that was the talk of the city for some time. I still recall his picture with the family dosa in his hand in the Hindu then. The different types of dosa - cabbage dosa, cauliflower dosa , egg dosa, ravadosa, masaladosa, keeradosa and other types I enjoyed with my friends at Village, Coimbatore. I read in hindu that at the anniversary of an organization at vijayawada, the organizers presented a giant dosa for the first time in India, and this now finds a place in GUINNESS book for it's length!
The article made me wonder to know the different facts about the common food at home.Also, I could remember the paper that i had in my B.Tech "Principles of food technology" where they describe idli and dosa as fermented food products.So we can call our ancestors as the earliest fermentation technologists who devised the procedure for fermentation without using any microbial cultures or sterilization equipment.
I can imagine the way the author's wife would have struggled to handle his expectations of successful version of successive forms of dosa,from day one (of their married life!). I found the adjective
'fat cousin' to Uthappam fascinating...
a true rasika of dosa!
apt dosage of dosa age!
superb illustration by our master, Surendra!
All women must read and prepare the dough or paste for a week and try out the delicacies as mentioned by the author. It preserves time and thought as to what to prepare and how. Interesting article
I am really astonished to note that a simple DOSA can take so many forms. The funniest thing that can be observed is that it takes different forms from the day one to the last day and that too even when the flour is sour.
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