Now for something to go with that cup of tea, or coffee!

Of all the times I spent around my grandmother in her kitchen, I loved the afternoons best of all. While the adults retired to snooze after a heavy lunch, and older cousins ganged up and loitered over music, magazines and books, I would be gathering spoons, bowls, eggs, sugar, bananas, and whatever grandmother instructed me to fetch and carry as she set about making “something for tea”.

No task was too small to this eager helper. Peel and mash those bananas? (I’m on it!). Fetch a sheet of newspaper to drain the fried foods on? (Race to the pile outside the store room and back in a flash!). Butter from the fridge? (Faster than greased lightning!).

This was the most wonderful time spent in her company – the afternoon sun lighting and warming the kitchen, grandmother quietly mixing batter, rolling pastry or pouring pancakes, with the occasional instruction aimed in my direction.

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2014 is off and running and I’m slow to the party – perhaps some coffee will help perk things up!

These past weeks, coffee harvesting has been going full tilt here in Coorg. Every now and then, a whiff of the distinctive scent of fermenting ripe coffee berries wafts by on the cool January breeze. It’s not exactly what you’d term a pleasing fragrance, but one that for many of us has a pleasant  association – that of a crop being readied for the market as another year’s coffee cycle comes to fruition.

There’s more coffee in the air. I see reports in the local papers about the 5th India International Coffee Conference being held in Bangalore from the 21st to the 25th of January. It sounds like rather a big deal, and includes a number of workshops and events aimed at those in the business of coffee as well for the general public.

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It’s certainly beginning to look and sound a lot like Christmas here in Vancouver!

Local lad, Michael Bublé warbles Christmas tunes over the audio system of any store you walk into. There’s snow on the mountains, and a forecast for snow in the city soon. Everywhere you go, the sound of “Jingle Bells” seems to follow. And, of course, the exhortations to shop fast and furiously blare at you from the radio, TV and flashing billboards.

Personally, I love this time of year for the pretty Christmas displays, and the sound of Christmas carols, but I’d  rather avoid the crowds and shop online! Or, better still, make some gifts for friends, instead of buying them. Since ’tis the season to be jolly, this seems like the right time for a little home made liqueur. 🙂

Like so many ladies in Coorg, my grandmother was a handy home brewer. She made delicious orange, lychee, and ginger wines. Some were for home consumption, but mostly, what she made was to be shared with family and friends during social gatherings.

My mother, on the other hand, dabbled just a little in home brewing during her time as an army wife, picking up tips and recipes through a cosmopolitan “Ladies Club” effort.

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There is something very special about the kajjayas given as prasada at the Iguthappa temple. The ingredients are simplicity itself – rice flour (made from soaked, dried and powdered rice) cooked in jaggery syrup, and bananas. And yet, they come together with a certain je ne sais quois.

No matter how delicious the versions made at home are, these remain unique in their appeal. Perhaps if you could capture the scent of wood smoke, freshly cracked coconuts, sandalwood, camphor and sampigé (Magnolia champaca), then shake them all together with a dash of cool, clean air and brilliant blue skies, topped with a large dose of serenity, you might come close. But some things are just best enjoyed at the source.

Of the various fried sweets made from a foundation of rice flour and jaggery, there is a small subset that falls into the category of kajjaya. Subtle variations set them apart, but they are essentially fried dumplings or small cakes made from ground rice and jaggery with a few added ingredients like bananas and coconut, sesame or poppy seed, and spices like cardamom or fenugreek.

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One of the highlights of our visits to my grandparents in Coorg, as a child, was a trip to the Paadi Iguthappa* temple in Kakkabé. Though we made visits to the temple at other times of year too, the ones that were most special to me happened around the time of the harvest festival of Puthari, usually in early December.

Set into a wooded hill, with waves of terraced paddy fields wrapping around the base of it, the temple radiates a calm and simple beauty. The presiding deity of the temple is Iguthappa, known as “the giver of grain” and his promise to the people of Coorg is that as long as he is honoured, the land will prosper.

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After all those new world imports*, it’s time to look to a homegrown favourite and a “passion fruit”** of another kind.

Native to South Asia, the brinjal (aubergine, baingan, eggplant or kathirikai – whatever name you know it by,  I’ll stick with brinjal for now)  does seems to rouse strong passions. I don’t mean its reputation in history for being considered an aphrodisiac (and a cause of madness, too, for good measure)! It’s the extremes of adoration, to active dislike, it seems to evoke in people. Quite often, gastronomic battle lines are drawn in an instant at the mere mention of it. And people display fierce loyalty to regional varieties too. One professional cook I know will not travel out of his village without arming himself with a large bagful of the locally grown variety of brinjal. He is quite forthright in his opinion that “those available in the city are worse than useless“!

The brinjal is cultivated all over India, and scores of varieties of all shapes and hues abound. Karnataka and parts of Andhra Pradesh seem to have a particular fondness for the brinjal. In an interesting account I read on the famed “Mattu Gulla” brinjal grown in Udupi, the author writes of how the reformist seer Sri Vadiraja Tirtha Swamiji is credited with introducing it to the district over 500 years ago, possibly from seeds brought from Bengal. The mattu gulla brinjal is the only variety used in dishes prepared at the Sri Krishna temple in Udupi.

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