Dod Chai (Milk tea) and Gaari’Poor, Puri, always sweet, made from Water Chestnut (Singhara) flour. The two are especially
prepared by Pandits on phake’doh, fast day.
In old days, Singhara was the staple food among poor masses of Kashmir. During the months when normal cereals were hard to source, Wular and Dal Lake offered Gaeer, Singhara, in abundance.
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Chai Shoda: Kashmiri nommer for someone addicted to Tea.
I have vague memories of this snack at my dadi's house in Sopore…maybe at that point I didn't like it so much!
Yesterday a Kashmiri friend brought me Roth….and it was so good to remember those old times again. Making designs with Khasoos on the roths, sprinkling poppy seeds on them..
I try and do some of these things now for my very un-Kashmiri children!! 🙂
Even I didn't like some of these things when I was a kid. But I like them now. It is futile to worry about culture or rather 'loss of culture'. Kashmiris worry a lot about it. But the truth is that the culture is ever changing. It always has been. Somethings get lost and some get passed on. Even your children will pick up some things from you. And that's because you are trying.
'Making designs with Khasoos on the roths, sprinkling poppy seeds on them'
It has been a couple of years now since I last saw the making of rith…but that line bought back all the memories 🙂
My maasi brought some roth and low'ud home yesterday. Relished some with Kehwa. I remember that the puun roths sent in by all the relatives used to last, much to my delight, for weeks. Over tea, there would be discussions on the quality of roth sent by this-that-that's this family, hum, yem, hum'sin'yem family. At times they could even tell the family by the taste of the roth. Some families were famous for their roth. It was kind of fun time for children cause if you didn't want the usual lavas with tea, you could always ask for roth. It was offered but always with the advise, 'Dont eat too much of this, it is go'ub, heavy.' Of course the advise was ignored.
Phew! Bahut ho gaya