The food for the prisoners in Southern jails is the Ragi Ball. Let not the readers feel pity for them. So long as this Ragi Ball does not grow hairs and teeth (stones), the ragi cater needs no pitying! From the point of view of nutrition and food economy, only those who do not eat it have to be pitied. It is said that in the good old days, in the pre-prison reforms era, this ragi ball, before its journey from its place of birth in the kitchen, to the prisoner (some say political) plate used, to age like this, grow hair and teeth!
If this is just as it is in nativity in the kitchen pot, Ragi ball is really a food treasure. Now it appears the prisoners are lords. They get the white rice if they choose with an extra polish, even served in accordance with the cookery notes appearing in the most leading English Daily! It is a pity! These fashion notes, seem to ill-serve these prisoners too!
Greatness of Ragi
Is the greatness of Ragi still un-understandable? Some say, things will become clear if the Ragi biscuits are tasted! So much of taste? In reality, Ragi is a high class food from the point of view of nutrition. Ragi has got special merits. This is cheaper than wheat or Rice. The machine that devitalises wheat and rice cannot wag its tail with Ragi! You cannot separate the husk and bran. Whole meal flour only is possible. The essence cannot be removed even by the machine.
Ragi belongs to the Millet group. This forms the staple diet for the people in Karnataka and the neighbouring districts. This can be used to supplement the protein available from a rice diet and for iron, mineral and Vitamin A contents.
Apart from the protein contents, Ragi is superior even to the raw hand-pounded rice in some respects. The minerals and Iron present in Ragi are of a high percentage. There is nothing worth mentioning of Vitamin A in Rice. Ragi contains 70 international units of Vitamin A.
We cannot reject Ragi on the ground that it is fit for only convicts in jails. Even those in top hats, collar and ties and the fashionable lady of ribbon, powder and bow, can take this Ragi to suit their health and appearance! To eat this as the Ragi ball is the best method and the cheapest.
Two secrets
Two secrets lie hidden in the Ragi Diet. The mode of eating is the first: and its preparation is a greater one than that! Many years ago I had been to the house of a Mysorean for dinner. In the menu spread on the plate I observed one fairly big red ball. There was a feeling of shyness to ask particulars of this spherical object!
There was just a doubt that this might be a halva prepared with jaggery. Mustering courage I plunged like a fork my four fingers into this ball, separated a big slice and thrust the sticky limp into my mouth and drew away the fingers. As usual with me I bit the stuff for mastication. I was conscious of the process only that much! Who can describe my subsequent antiques not entirely free from pain?
On Biting
The teeth stuck into this wonder ball. The upper and the lower jaws became very friendly and refused to seperate! The gum lost in comparison, for stickiness! I wrestled hard and opened my mouth, the pasty flour stood extended between the upper and the lower parts of the mouth. The inside of this ball also was very hot. The tongue felt fried.
I was blinking with a sense of suffocation. Hearing my guttural ‘Ha! Ha! my friend turned their pious looks on me and laughed and held their sides, in laughter! Just then the thing came to my mind, that every rule has an exception. The Ragi Ball set at naught the law of mastication! To turn this ball lumps over the tongue also is not desirable. Four persons would then be required to clean this tongue! You must observe this mountain like Ragi ball dissolving at the agile fingering of a Mysorean! You would feel awed and think of it as one of the great Sciences!
No teeth are required
This Ragi Ball can be consumed by persons of all ages. There is no distinction of six or hundred. No teeth are required. Not even the ivory artificial teeth are necessary. To be without teeth is the best thing. Danger will drop in if there is any attempt at biting! The pastily-closed mouth will have to be opened only with aid! Supposing one does not need even oil or ghee, what an easy diet this becomes!
Swallow Gabak
Only ‘Huli’, thick soup, is essential to consume this. It is best that this ‘Huli’ is made out of dhal. Now for the science of eating this: Have this Ragi ball in hill shape or mountain shape on your leaf or plate. Isolate this elevated feature by thick dhal soup on all sides. From this ball scoop out with your middle and index fingers, say, a marble size of this pasty material. Roll in soup or soak gently without pressing, this miniature ball. Open your mouth wide. Throw this marble-sized paste ball far in without its coming by any chance into contact with the tongue or the teeth.
Close your mouth and swallow ‘Gabak’! There will be a ‘Bum’ fall of this into the stomach. Then scoop out another in the same fashion, and another, yet another and so on, until the ‘Everest-feature’ on plate disappears into thin air. They say some of the State subjects will melt big No. 3 foot-ball size paste in a couple of minutes. Great indeed!
False status
The Indian prides himself that he is ultra-fashionable and ultra-civilised, especially in cooking and eating. Eating pearl-white rice is one of the reasons. This ultra-civilised habit will transport us gently to hospitals and to the tender mercies of the ‘fiddle itches’. They murmur that only the denizens of forests, bipeds, will eat this Ragi, and must eat Ragi! We are constrained to say that the machine-rice-eating, dried up Tamilian is the uncivilised being. Does civilisation consist in forgetting nature? Is this real dignity? These State secrets are revealed here in the hope that the idle boast will be dropped out, the wretched state of health understood and Ragi the good adopted!
Ragi gives life to the poor and the labourers. Even the fat-pursed can adopt with benefit the Ragi, and keep the purse eternally fat!
Preparation of Ragi Ball
The next secret concerns the art of preparing the Ragi Ball. The Tamilians like the preparation ‘Kolakattai’ sweet enclosed rice-flour ball. Accost him even in the South pole with this word, he would melt, inspite of the ice and you would get into his heart! Preparing this flour paste is a great science! Call it if you please ‘Kolakattai’ Science! The experienced old lady at home is an expert in this science. This grand old dame would learn this Ragi ball preparation in a trice. The process and the timing are the same for both. The Ragi Ball should not become too hard. If would fall like iron balls into the stomach. Moisture, there must be enough.
Just put on the oven the necessary quantity of water according to the quantity of ragi flour to be treated. When the water boils, make the flour flow into the water in a thin stream, and go on stirring the same with a ladle. Wooden stick is the best. This stirring must not be interrupted. The flour and water will become pasty and rotate like a ball.
Then stop the feeding with flour. Get this pot down from the oven and continue stirring. Dip both the hands in cold water. Tactfully take out big handfull lumps from the pot. Roll them into ball shape within the palms. Wrap them round with a wet cloth and leave them on the plate. This can be buried at any time, at any hour, according to rules and observances stated before, in the stomach. A couple of days experience would take away the nightmare out of this process.
Benefits of Ragi Balls
This will keep off hunger from the labourer for a long time. Even for the intellect they say it is not bad. This is the best diet for the poor who spend so much money for the machine rice and the conji. Not even salt is necessary for this diet. Taste is known only when the tongue comes in contact! The ragi flour will taste sweet. This is the best diet preparation of the Ragi. Other ways of cooking reduce the diet value.
Do not swing to this diet from rice, all of a sudden. Make the stomach acquainted with this friend by eating now and again and then daily a little of this Ragi Ball. Blood is purified by this diet. Bones get strengthened. Flesh will grow. Constipation will be removed. The malt from this known as the Ragi Malt is very good for babies and children.
People may not relish the Ball. They can prepare a sweet preparation out of this, popularly known in the Deccan and the South as ‘Obbattu’ or called ‘Boli’ by the Tamilian. Protein and other benefits will be available. The tongue will dance. False civilisation will take flight. The lord of the house will straight away place an order for a bag of this flour after tasting this ‘nicety’.
To prepare ‘Obbattu’: Heat the necessary quantity of water to suit the quantity of flour intended to be used. Put enough jaggery chips into the water and melt it and stir. Fine coconut chips, aloes, fried cashewnuts all should be thrown in and then the flour should be poured in a thin stream as for the Ragi Ball, stirred with the laddie, and taken down as before. Take out from this paste, lemon size balls. Flatten each ball on the leaf. Put an iron pan on the oven. On the hot oven, expose, this flattened ragi and cover it all round with good liquid ghee. Fry to browning-point both sides and take it down. This is the incomparable ‘Ragi Obbattu’. One need not add that you should eat it.
Ragi biscuit is nice and best of the biscuits. It beats the other white flour buiscuits in point of nutrition and taste, and cheapness. You can purchase this from the confectioner. Possibly the baker may get angry if the secret of this preparation is let out!
Thank you Ragi!