BharatSangraha

Rayalaseema · Deccan Inland Plateau

Foodways

This is a kitchen written by a rainfall figure. With no assured water there is no assured vegetable, so the everyday meal is built from things that keep: a millet ball or a millet bread, a dry roasted powder, a spoonful of groundnut oil, and a thin sour broth. Pulses that other regions treat as fodder — horse gram above all — are here a course. Chilli is used at a quantity that startles even coastal Andhra, and the heat is dry and garlicky rather than sour. Against the delta, which is sourer, wetter and greener, Rayalaseema is drier, hotter, more mutton-forward and much more dependent on the powder jar. Against Old Mysore across the Ballari gap it shares the ragi ball entirely and diverges on what is poured over it.

Primary cooking medium

Groundnut oil — the region grows the crop and crushes it locally, so this is the default fatSesame oil for pickling and for the dry powdersRendered mutton fat, used deliberately rather than skimmed offGhee at the temples and in the pilgrimage kitchensBuffalo ghee stirred into a ragi ball at a wedding

Dominant sour agents

Tamarind, in quantity, and used both cooked and rawButtermilk, both fresh and as a preserving bath for chilliesRaw and sun-dried mangoTomato, which displaced tamarind in the towns and not in the villagesGongura, less central here than on the coastChintachiguru — tender tamarind leaf, a seasonal souring green cooked with mutton

Spice register

Dried red chilli in bulk, garlic in bulk, coriander seed, cumin, and roasted groundnut or sesame as a thickener. Very little coconut except on the Tirupati slope where the Tamil influence begins. Guntur and its sannam chilli belong to the coast, not here — Rayalaseema's reputation for heat comes from how much chilli the kitchen uses and how little it dilutes it, not from a famous local variety. The signature preparation is not a curry but a powder eaten dry.

Staple grains and carbs

Ragi (finger millet) — the staple, eaten as a stiff ball rather than as breadJowar and bajra as flatbreadKorra (foxtail millet) and other small millets, once dominant and now marginalRice under the K.C. canal, the Tungabhadra command and the Penna reservoirsGroundnut, which is a fat and a protein rather than a grain but is the region's real cash cropHorse gram (ulavalu) and bengal gram

Preservation methods

Avakaya and magaya — mango pickled in oil, and mango salted, sun-dried and then oiledKaram podi, kandi podi and nuvvula podi, roasted dry and stored for months in a sealed jarMajjiga mirapakayalu — chillies cured in salted buttermilk and sun-dried over several daysVadiyalu and appadalu, sun-dried in the pre-monsoon weeks when the sun is fiercestTamarind pressed into salted blocks and kept for yearsGroundnut stored in shell and crushed as needed, because the oil goes rancid faster than the nut

Signature techniques

Sangati beating

Ragi flour is rained into boiling water, often with a little cooked rice for body, and beaten hard with a wooden stirrer until the starch gelatinises and the mass pulls away from the pot as one smooth ball. It is then portioned into fist-sized balls by hand. The technique is entirely about the beating — a gritty sangati is a badly made one — and it converts a grain that makes poor bread into a food that carries a sauce.

Also found in: Old Mysore, Bayaluseeme, Kongu Nadu

Podi roasting

Redgram, chilli, sesame, garlic or roasted gram is dry-roasted separately to different degrees, then pounded coarse with salt and stored. A podi with a spoon of oil replaces a curry entirely, keeps for months without refrigeration, and is why a dryland household can eat well in a year with no vegetables. Each powder is a distinct preparation with its own roasting order, not a generic masala.

Also found in: Telangana, Kosta Andhra, Old Mysore

Ulava decoction

Horse gram is boiled long and hard; the first cooking liquor is drawn off and kept, the gram is pressed, and the liquor is simmered down and left to stand — often overnight — before being tempered and soured. Standing is part of the method: the starch settles and the broth thickens without any flour.

Also found in: Kosta Andhra, Old Mysore

Rolu pounding

Chilli, garlic and roasted seeds are pounded coarse in a stone mortar rather than wet-ground, so the paste releases oil rather than water and stays flecked. It is the reason Rayalaseema heat reads as blunt and grainy where a wet-ground coastal paste reads as smooth.

Also found in: Telangana, Kosta Andhra, Bayaluseeme

Slow natu kodi braising

A country bird is lean, muscular and old by the standards of a poultry chicken, so it is browned in oil, then simmered an hour or more in a tamarind-and-chilli gravy that would destroy a broiler. The dish is designed around the animal available, not the other way round.

Also found in: Kosta Andhra, Telangana

Ghani pressing

Groundnut is crushed in a wooden or stone rotary press turned slowly, so the oil comes out at low temperature and keeps its aroma and its colour. It is inefficient compared with expeller and solvent extraction and produces a visibly different oil, which is why village households still buy it.

Also found in: Bayaluseeme, Old Mysore

Ambali fermentation

Ragi or jowar flour cooked to a gruel, cooled, slackened with buttermilk and left overnight to sour, drunk cold at first light. It is the practical breakfast of a groundnut field in May.

Also found in: Telangana, Old Mysore, Bayaluseeme

The foodway signature of Rayalaseema — cooking medium, souring agents, spice register, staple grains and the techniques that define it. (7)