Green Gram — பயறு
More about Green gram
Botanical Name: Vigna radiata
Protein: 24g per 100g
Fat: 1.2g per 100g
Grown in: India, Southeast Asia, China
A month after sowing the seeds, yellow flowers produce tiny green pods that become green gram. Ammamma would say you must find good-quality seeds first, but Amma just bought them ready-made at the store.
Amma made many things with green gram, dosai, daal, and fritters. My favorite was payatham paniyaram. When the house filled with its smell, we knew the day was special. Sometimes a happy occasion: a wedding reception or a relative visiting. Other times, the thirty-first day after someone’s passing. Some recipes crossed over from Tamil Nadu to Karaveddy, but this one I always felt was Eelam: not borrowed and not mixed.
Akka, Thangachi, and I would circle Amma on the floor as she dry-roasted the green gram slowly in a big pan before adding freshly grated coconut and jaggery. Sometimes a bit of cumin and pepper powder -- giving a punch without being spicy.
Without a counter to work on after the mixture was coated in dough, she would roll them with her hand on a white cloth stretched over a rice-measuring cup. With one hand, she dipped and fried them; with the other, she watched to make sure we didn’t grab one before it made it into the bright plastic buckets she placed beside her to store them. As children, we thought her hands were magic.
In war, you leave home quickly. There isn’t time to think about what you will miss. It was only when Amma arrived at my training base with a red plastic bucket clasped in front of her like a protective vest that my heart (and stomach) jumped with excitement and longing.
Amma would have known that the green gram, high in fiber and protein, would fuel the young bodies drained by our commitment to fight. Whether mine or another cadre’s relative came, we noticed that every palagaram packet was precisely packed and presented solemnly. As if an offering for an occasion that couldn’t yet be celebrated.
Each cadre was a cup of tea, and like everything else about leaving civilian life we had left behind, eating this one payatham paniyaram felt different. It was like the struggle, like Amma. There was nothing extreme about its fire: it was just the perfect balance of sharp and sweet.
