Day 6: The Day of Fast Food

Good evening!

So five days of torture was too much for me. I took a break and went to KFC with a friend. Seeing too many people lined up there for their tray of ‘fast-food’ I thought that this concept of Videshi fast food that our generations has grown up eating is just 15, or 20 yrs old, pioneered by the very humble 2-minute-noodles. We were always told that fast food is BAD still we all loved that.

In the morning I was scanning my kitchen I found makki ka Sattu, which was getting a bit old. So I roasted it in microwave, mixed malai, milk and a li’l sugar to make a paste and had it for the brunch. It kept me full for the day.

Now before many of us start wondering, let me tell you this Sattu thing is one of oldest fast foods still ruling many hearts. Sattu is a very popular food in east UP, bihar, Jharkhand, and some other eastern states.

It is a very simple food. Take any cereal, roast it well, grind it and your Sattu is ready. There may be many variations but basically Sattu is flour of roasted cereals rather than that of raw cereals of which our regular flours are made.

The origin of name Sattu: Sattu was originally Seven Anaaj (seven cereals, millets and pulses) - locally pronounced Sat-anjaa, later transformed to Sattu.

The 7 Ingredients of Sattu are:

1. Makai - maize
2. Jo - barley
3. Chana - gram
4. Arahar - pigeon pea or Toor Daal as we call in Delhi
5. Matar - grean peas
6. Khesari - This dal is not commonly found these days in the market as some researches have proved it to be causing some deseases.
7. Kurthi- This dal too is not commonly found these days in the market but mostly used by tribals. (Some inputs taken from wikipedia)

The most popular one is chane ka Sattu. Full of proteins and easy to digest. As a matter of fact since all the types of Sattu are made mostly from daals, they ought to be nutritious.

Apart from eating it as I had in the morning, there are numerous ways to use Sattu. It’s a very versatile food. The most popular is Baati as in Baati-chokha.(Not to confused by its other cousin from Rajasthan where only atta is used and no Sattu). Think of it. Baati is made in either Eastern India(Baati Chokha) or in Western(Daal Baati Churma) and perhaps nowhere else in India(even if made somewhere else, it will be because of the migrants from these two areas). The only common thing between these two Baatis is that a lot of ghee is used to enhance their taste.

In ‘Eastern’ Baati, Sattu is mixed with some spices(mainly the bharwa mircha) and finely chopped onions and is stuffed in the Baati and roasted on very low flame(Historically Kande ki aag) and eaten with loads of ghee and aloo-pyaaz ka chokha(or Bharta as many would say).

The second dish which I am very fond of is Sattu ka Paratha. Just the most awesome thing I ever had. My wife had never heard of Sattu before marriage. And when I introduced her to this humble roasted thing, it became an instant hit in our kitchen and now I get these Parathas every week.(a complete recipe can be found at http://www.thetastesofindia.com/sattu-ka-parantha/)

One other use is Sattu Ka Sharbat. In hot summers it’s a drink which really cools you from inside. Remember that though the soft drinks that we regularly take throughout summer are cool(in temperature) and refreshing(mostly because of caffeine), their effect on body is hot. Their ‘taseer’ is hot. However, this Sattu ka Sharbat has a cooling ‘taseer’. The best Sattu for this purpose if Jo(barley) ka Sattu. In the hot summer of 2004, I was in Karol Bagh, waiting to meet someone and was exhausted with heat, when I saw a thela selling Sarttu Ka Sharbat (Rs 2 per glass). That 2 Rs stuff saved me from a possible heatstroke that day. (Recipes here http://rasoiya.com/component/rapidrecipe/sattu-soda-drink.html and http://www.rasoia.com/component/rapidrecipe/sattu-drink-salty.html)

Lets end this post with a story my father told me some 15-20 yrs ago.

In older days(30-40 yrs old) many people on their pilgrimage carried Sattu with them and ate it with fresh radishes whenever they felt hungry(eco tourism: ecological and economical ;) ) One foreigner watched them closely and reported this on returning back: “In India there is so much poverty that people eat earth, but as they are not able to swallow it, they push it back with a stick”

Good Night.