Page 121 - UpperCrust e-Magazine Third Quarter 2024

RASAM | 'TIS THE SEASON

Like mother like
daughter, Subrata and
Preethi

The ingredients needed to make
the 13 rasams

tin, and the vessel will melt right there on time consuming shoots. I had to do it Subrata, in an instant, jotted down the 35
the stove if not correctly used. with the respect and care it deserved. And rasams she can make, in Telugu
What I was blown over was that Amma you know what? By the end of it, Amma
had been labouring over this assignment was thanking me most profusely. She was
for two days. At her age! Taking out most worried that I was working so hard.
the ingredients, measuring them, cleaning She told Preethi she was appreciative
them, roasting some, powdering others. about my dedication (which was merely
Not in an electric processor, but in a stone jumping up and down a low stool,
mortar pestle. The cutting and chopping adjusting the light, wiping a stain here,
(more like breaking and tearing), would a spill there and perhaps washing my
happen on the same morning, not the hands often enough to click on the camera
previous evening – greens and vegetables button!). Amma wouldn’t listen to me
lose their freshness overnight. So what do when I kept repeating that it was I and
you think she did? She woke up at 3 am to the UpperCrust readers who had to thank
start the pre-preps and then around 6 am her for her time, effort, love and devotion
started the cooking. By the time we arrived to the art of making a good rasam! She
at 11 am, she was at the door, all bathed would have none of it. Instead she shooed accompanied by the pickles she had made
and dressed in her pretty Kanjivaram us away to wash our hands and face, so in the summer: ginger which tastes like
sari, flowers in her hair, diamonds in her we could come and eat the upma she raw mango.
ears, nose, neck, gold bangles making would prepare for us, after we were done As for the rasams, believe me, no two
that lovely soft sound you associate with with the tasting of all the 13 rasams. rasams tasted the same! How can that
women of yore. You know what? It was the most be? But it was. And one was better than
It was among my most emotional and delectable upma I have ever eaten the other.

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