THE fare is simple enough, Mutter Chura, Hara Chana, Potato Kachodi and Malai Puri. What might differ in the menu in the haveli next door and the one down the street, is the stuffing that goes into the kachodi. At Shree Raman's, the stuffing which is normally made of potato, is mixed with apple pulp. "The sourer the apple, the better," says Mrs. Raman, who supervises the cooking. "And another thing, the ingredients used are always fresh."

The Mutter Chura and Hara Chana are seasonal foods. Mutter Chura is the winter food. It is available from November to February. And the Hara Chana from January to March. What do Banarasis eat rest of the year for breakfast. "Oh, there are other items," say Shree Raman. Like there is corn available all of July and August, and from September to November, there is waterchestnuts. Only April to June are dry months. That's when they take out the dried stuff.

Banarasis make a lot of food items out of corn. They make a Corn Chewda and Potato Chops with corn stuffing. Also Corn Pakodas. Likewise, the waterchestnuts. This is cooked like corn, to make a chewda, in pure ghee. When the green peas are cooked, they are cooked in a thick vessel with steam. The green peas already have a high water content, so no water is used. And the Kachodis are made with a maida dough. Apple and potato make the stuffing. Hing, jeera, ginger, green chillis, garam masala, dalchini, lavang, cloves, dried amchur, sugar, salt, all this is goes in the maida, and the kachodi is fried in ghee.

Then there's the Doodh Jelebi that most Banarasis must also have for breakfast. The Jelebis, which are crisp, are immersed in milk to become soft. Note: this milk is not sweet. In fact, it absorbs some of the sugar content of the Jelebi, so what you have is a Jelebi that is not sugary sweet and syrupy, but soft and also tasting of milk. It's different.

Some houses do a Kachodi Bhaji. The bhaji is potato, a simple enough recipe, it is cooked with fresh tomtoes. This is a thick bhaji, there's no gravy. And there's Sattu Ka Paratha. The sattu is channa ka dal, and it is mixed with other spices, the red chilli pickle masala is crushed and added as a stuffing, you have it with a cup of tea, it tastes divine and gives the tea a bit of a bite. But what is not seasonal and will be found on the Banarasi breakfast round the year, is Malai Puri. Milk is reduced on a fire, and the fat content on its surface us skimmed off and collected, and later dried. It this is added sweetened milk, saffron, pistachios and almonds, and it is served, the grand finale to the breakfast.