Indira,

Thanks for letting us know. There’s more to be done in http://blogdesam.com Will update you as soon as it’s done. Thanks for the feedback Indira.

-Mathy

Indira replies:
Thanks very much Mathy. It would be a great service to the food bloggers community and checking the updates become easy. If you do this for us, I will send you a box of sweets (from Mahanandi recipes) of your choice. . Small sweet bribe to motivate you.

Thanks for sharing all these recipes with us. I prepared some of the recipes given by you and our family liked them.

I want to know in which section I should look for Millet Rice (Please tell the brand name also) in Whole Foods Market. I also couldn’t find Wild Rice in the regular Grocery. Please let me know where I can look for Wild rice. (Please suggest brand name also)
Thaking you
Sarada

Thanks,
Lavanya

Of course, there is a personal story connected with my affection for millet. My grandmother was a young woman with 3 children when the WWII began, and they had to live in the caves in the forest when their village was being raided (it happened often in Russia, where she lived before the war; they moved to Ukraine later.) She had almost nothing but millet, and she could not light the fire for long for the fear of being discovered by the SS troops. So, she would boil water, add millet and then put out the fire and let the grain cook in the residual heat. She said that millet saved their lives. When I was a child, I still remember her cooking millet like this. She would boil the water, add millet and salt and then turn the heat off. She wrapped the heavy cast-iron pot under layers and layers of towels and there it sat for almost an entire day. The result, however, was always delicious–rich, soft, yet with each grain separate and fluffy.

Sorry for a long comment, but I got carried away with these memories.

Lovely post as usual.

In Sri Lanka, Foxtail Millet is called ‘Thinai’ in Tamil. It is one of the innumerable alternate grains the ancestors used as part of their daily diet. And which we seem to have lost touch with in our race to confirm to the mainstream norms and to appear sophisticated. I have to confess that even though, I’ve tasted some different grains, i’ve stayed with rice most of my life.

Getting back to Foxtail Millet, I remember my grandmom mixing roasted Millet flour with some honey, scraped coconut and warm water to make handsized balls. She gave it us on a day when we lost electric power (it stayed that way for more than a week, the war was not at it’s peak in Northern Sri Lanka, then). We were not very enthusiastic. But the glamour of sitting together in a circle around our grandmother enticed us. I vaguely remember the nutty taste.

As usual, there is a story behind the then (honey) & thinai Maavu (Millet Flour). Quite a famous and ancient one at that.

Lord Murukan has two wives, one of them is Valli a tribal girl from Kathirkamam in Southern Sri Lanka.

It’s an interesting love story. Long story short, Murugan tries to woo Valli, who was guarding the family’s Millet (from birds and such). He takes different forms. One of them is as an old man. The old man claims to be hungry and Valli feeds him Millet flour mixed with honey. The old man, after eating this claims to be thirsty. And, Valli takes him to a stream. After that, without changing forms, the old man propositions Valli without any success. On the verge of defeat, Murugan requests the help of his older brother Vinayakar or Pillaiyar, who appears as a wild elephant. Thus driving Valli into the arms of the waiting Murugan. You can read about it here - http://kataragama.org/valli.htm.

It is customary to be given Millet flour mixed with honey in Kathirkamam, Sri Lanka as Prasatham.

I am going to look for Foxtail Millet in the health food stores here Indira. That last photo is quite tempting.

Happy New Year Indira.
-Mathy

Thanks for the wishes and Happy New Year Mathy! Hope you had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends in that beautiful city of yours. I heard Montreal glows during holiday season with festive cheer.
What a wonderful story, never knew that humble millet was the food of Gods and also offered as prasatham. I’ve to try your grandmama’s sweet version.
One more recipe I remember is millet upma - with onions, green chillies, curry leaves etc, usually served with peanut chutney. It tastes awesome.
About comments - Actually I was displaying comments on the front page until spring of last year. Then the spammers found Mahanandi. It’s continuously under attack and even the spam karma-2 couldn’t stop them from leaking on to main page. Because of that I had to remove display feature from my template. Spam is brutal to deal with these days. It’s a major headache.
I also have a request Mathy. I’ve added Blog Desam along with Technorati etc at Mahanandi’s Food Blog List. Could you please add a category for us food bloggers in Blog Desam. It’d be nice to have a “Food” or “Recipes” category for food bloggers. It’d also make easy to check the updates in food blogs. What do you think? Thanks Mathy!
—-Indira