“It’s always blue as the sky and white as milk!
The colour of innocence and purity is white!
White is the colour of your proper choice!
Which is why milk in any other colour is just ain’t right!”
Now before you pick up the colour swords! My favourite colour is not white! Nor is my favourite drink white milk!
The other day we were shifting our house and boiled milk for the first time and allowed it to flow over! The tradition and modern cross was not that proper since it fell over the infra red heater and now the poor heater may not see another dish for a long time! Of course we drank that hot milk with nothing but a little sugar but the memories of milk and my mother simply gushed out like an emotional tsunami!
Remember how your mother would give you a glass of warm milk early in the morning everyday! Many times I would drink only the milk to get it over with and later eat the Horlicks or Boost powder! The worst would be when a single drop of water or even a damp spoon would be left in the jar and the whole thing used to become a hard rock! Of course we boys would still like to lick it and eat the rubbery but sweet mess! Others would put hot milk or hot water into the jar and voila you will have an instant chocolate drink like the way we used to get on special occasions!
Milk is something which is very close to the average Indian household! No one can survive without that! Starting from the coffee or tea and then getting that extra milk if it is your birthday or some holiday! Or even if you have an extra guest in the house or one fine day you are in the mood for a glass of tea! Since ours was a typical coffee drinking family! This used to make drinking tea special! My mother used to love the tea I used to make and she never liked to make tea! One of the few things like rasam which she can make very well but used to like what others make!
Every holiday had its own special milk variation!
If it was a kerala festival then more of jaggery with milk so that the sweet would be brown! If it is white then it was her famed Paladda payasam which is made with rice but her added magic was the coconut milk in the end! Even now when I make it like her, my kids come rushing for the coconut payasam!
In Tamil or Kannada festivals the sweet payasam would be white! Of course this is not a rigid rule! My mother used to love making semiya payasam and this is a sweet which can absorb as much milk you can throw at it!
The simplest dish to make is the rice payasam though the best rice payasam is the one which has a little bit of condensed milk!
Now condensed milk was a sweet nectar sent from heaven! Whenever mom used to use the condensed milk can, we used to eagerly wait for her to finish the can knowing fully well that the end and the sides would be sweet and yummy to lick!
When mom was in a generous mood she would give a spoon full for us to use as we wish! I used to love putting that over milk bread and eating to my heart’s delight!
Another amazing milky nectar was this dish called the Therattipal! This was apparently better with a spoilt milk! My dear Padma ATHAI (dad’s sister) was known to make the best therattipal ever! This was a mammoth undertaking since you have to stir and stir! Slowly and steadily you have to keep on adding sugar and make it thicken!
Interestingly many of the famous milk sweets are made by ‘breaking’ the milk!
Now the most popular milk variant which kids love is the cheese which in our days was not so popular! In fact we used to get canned cheese which was like a greasy sour variant of butter! Better left alone for a long time till the pizza revolution!
Many houses even make ghee with the butter collected from the milk and other places but then that is a long tedious process and my mother of two boys never even dared to venture into it!
Of course after all use is done, the leftover milk is used for making curd for the curd rice or thayir saadam without which any meal is incomplete!
My mother had a dish which we used to make with even excess curds! She used to heat it and curdle it further! That used to give rise to a dish which is similar to curd sambar but more sour! We used to call it Kurki! When there was no side dish or sambar in the house my mother used to simply grind some coconut (even when I say we have no side it still means that an average Indian house would still have some coconut or even some old dish lying in the fridge somewhere!) with jeera and some chillies and mix with the Kurki and we would have a feast!
My dear mother was a great lady and another great lady is birthday celebrity Droupadi Murmu!
Now if you have a glass of warm milk given by your mother in your hand, consider yourself as the luckiest person in the world and sleep!
Shubh ratri…
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