Upma

Upma (uppidi pindi in telugu) was originally a widows’ dinner. Widows were banned from eating salt and spice. They were also not supposed to eat a full course rice meal for dinner. So they soak rice in water and dry it and make rava out of it. Then they steam it and eat it.

Subsequently, as more middle class started working as clerks, upma has taken a new avatar as a quick to prepare snack for them along with coffee in the evening when they return from office, so that they can have dinner slightly later. In this avatar, many tasty stuff like oil, curry leaf, mustard seed, various lentils, ginger, green chilli, cashew nuts etc started getting added to it to make it more tasty.

In Andhra famously it became an accompaniment to pesarat dosa (moong dosa), in place of chutneys. The humble grains of semolina are widely used in Indian cooking and always fascinating  how versatile they can be. Sometimes sweet, sometimes savory, sometimes the crunchy coating on a simple fried fish, semolina has many wonderful avatars.

Upma is a breakfast dish that’s as delicious as it is good for you. Upma is welcoming of all sorts of flavors and vegetables, so if you’ve eaten a carrot stick too many, you can always replace it with any other veggie you like. And feel free to garnish it with scraped coconut, peanuts, cashews, bits of dry fruit or even slices of your favorite fruit.