From a historical perspective Roti (the flat round homemade Indian bread or Ruti in Bengali) is a rather new entrant in the Bengali diet chart. We never had ruti in our menu as children. For us it was always Bhat (cooked rice ) for lunch and dinner. Ruti was the main food item for people in Bihar or other northern and western provinces who preferred ruti to rice.Of course people here would occasionally go to one of the many Punjabi dhabas nearby to have a taste of roti and kasha mangso, but that was 'eating out'.
Then came the food crisis in the late '50s. Rice became scarce and much dearer. The whole State was brought under a strict rationing system. We had to buy rice at the ration shops, but the allotted quantity was far too inadequate and of course of much inferior quality. That was when Bengali homes switched to wheat or rather atta, its ground form, for making rutis at home at least for the evening meal. Shops sprang up in each locality with the necessary machines to grind whole wheat into a rather coarse powdery form of atta. We would take wheat purchased from the grocer to one of these shops for necessary conversion and bring the atta home.
The practice continued in most Bengali households and soon became a normal one. In many a Bengali home, ruti has replaced rice in the evening meal. As for me, I take ruti for dinner for more reasons than one. Firstly, it does not have to be made at home these days. A few metres from my house, there is an outlet making rutis in the evening . It is pretty cheap. Recently, thanks to the inflation, they have raised the price, but it is still Re.1.25 per piece which, for me, is quite reasonable considering that I take only three rutis. I find they do a brisk business which indicates that many a household not only has rutis for dinner, they do not care to take the trouble of making them. Secondly, since the number of rutis I take is fixed, I have a control over my diet and thirdly, rutis being fibre rich may have health benefits. I can not however vouch for the last point as I have not felt any such benefits myself.
I have had some experience in making rutis myself with not much of a satisfying result. It is not so much as making the dough from the atta, but rolling each piece out as a round one before heating it on the oven, that daunted me. Before venturing into a fresh attempt, I thought I would check with some experts this time. Google was my best bet. After all I found out 'how to make curd' through Google - I find the net an amazing source of information for a person as lazy as I am, but that is another story which I may share some other time. After my misadventure with luchis, I searched and found out a blog post which detailed luchi making with a few snapshots of different stages of the process. So I searched and lo and behold, I came across a number of videos demonstrating the making of ruti - here I should call it roti, as in Hindi- in detail. I came across videos showing the functions of the electric roti maker too.
The great thing about the roti maker is its ability to save people like me from a lot of embarrassment by rolling out the rotis in perfect round shapes and sizes in a jiffy.
It is of course not worth investing in one for three rotis a day !
Then came the food crisis in the late '50s. Rice became scarce and much dearer. The whole State was brought under a strict rationing system. We had to buy rice at the ration shops, but the allotted quantity was far too inadequate and of course of much inferior quality. That was when Bengali homes switched to wheat or rather atta, its ground form, for making rutis at home at least for the evening meal. Shops sprang up in each locality with the necessary machines to grind whole wheat into a rather coarse powdery form of atta. We would take wheat purchased from the grocer to one of these shops for necessary conversion and bring the atta home.
The practice continued in most Bengali households and soon became a normal one. In many a Bengali home, ruti has replaced rice in the evening meal. As for me, I take ruti for dinner for more reasons than one. Firstly, it does not have to be made at home these days. A few metres from my house, there is an outlet making rutis in the evening . It is pretty cheap. Recently, thanks to the inflation, they have raised the price, but it is still Re.1.25 per piece which, for me, is quite reasonable considering that I take only three rutis. I find they do a brisk business which indicates that many a household not only has rutis for dinner, they do not care to take the trouble of making them. Secondly, since the number of rutis I take is fixed, I have a control over my diet and thirdly, rutis being fibre rich may have health benefits. I can not however vouch for the last point as I have not felt any such benefits myself.
I have had some experience in making rutis myself with not much of a satisfying result. It is not so much as making the dough from the atta, but rolling each piece out as a round one before heating it on the oven, that daunted me. Before venturing into a fresh attempt, I thought I would check with some experts this time. Google was my best bet. After all I found out 'how to make curd' through Google - I find the net an amazing source of information for a person as lazy as I am, but that is another story which I may share some other time. After my misadventure with luchis, I searched and found out a blog post which detailed luchi making with a few snapshots of different stages of the process. So I searched and lo and behold, I came across a number of videos demonstrating the making of ruti - here I should call it roti, as in Hindi- in detail. I came across videos showing the functions of the electric roti maker too.
The great thing about the roti maker is its ability to save people like me from a lot of embarrassment by rolling out the rotis in perfect round shapes and sizes in a jiffy.
It is of course not worth investing in one for three rotis a day !
Regarding the part about health benefits- well,it is not a matter of jokes to impart health benefits to a lazy man, who smokes nearly 70 cigerettes a day.it would take more than 3 measly rotis a day.
ReplyDeleteTouche'
ReplyDeleteI always thought that a good roti maker would sell pretty well. Infact I once thought about how it should be designed, and came to the conclusion that it would be a major engineering feat, I mean the right one, where you just pour atta and water and roti comes out. The existing roti makers I think solve the problem only partially. But I guess it would not come so cheap compared to your 1.25 a piece. Still I believe it would sell good in the western world where lot of indians love their roti and find it difficult to give the time and effort to make them. I wonder why such a complete roti maker not been invented..
ReplyDeleteThe videos I watched of roti making in YouTube were obviously by Indians for Indians in the western world. It seems there are many out there who would love to have their rotis but do not know how to make them in absence of a Ma or a Grandma.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, a complete roti maker will really be useful.I understand that breadmakers available out there have to make the dough first - so the technology for dough making i.e mixing the atta and water, and kneading is already there. It is a question of some enterprising Indian to add that component of a breadmaker to the roti maker.Why don't you look into that aspect ?
Dwiju
ReplyDeleteIt will be useful to know where you found the roti maker. I will check if it is available in Amazon. Considering the number of roti intake for an adult (surely not 3 for everyone!) it probably won't be cost effective unless a number of rotis are made at the same time.
I have a bread maker at home which I use quite often. The problem is it takes nearly 3 hours to make one full size bread and the consumption is so much greater because of the superior quality compared to the mass produced bread, the extra hassle and the cost is not worth it. I hope that is not so with the roti maker.
As an aside, if one takes a few rotis during lunch and dinners with aloor dam (it is one of my favourites) as a prudent measure he probably needs 10 to 15 rupees a day to survive.That probably is not too much different compared to when I was in Kolkata back in the sixtiees.
Dadamoni
Dadamoni, your last point first.You are making a mistake in your calculations. Your memory is also playing up. If you want to have five rotis twice a day with aloor dam( a plate costs around Rs.12/-), it would cost you around Rs.36/- a day or Rs.1080/- a month. If you have four members in the family,each having the same meal, it means Rs.4320/- a month.Of course, it would cost much cheaper if you make it at home.
ReplyDeleteIn the sixties,the gross pay of an IAS officer was Rs.564/ per month at the beginning of his career.He would not have survived if the price of roti and aloor dam was at todays price level.It was obviously much cheaper.
But the point you are making is quite correct.One can survive on that diet at todays earning level quite easily in Kolkata.
As regards the roti maker, it is apparently available at Kolkata.It should also be available at Amazon since lot of NRIs are surely interested.I have seen its demonstration at YouTube.You just google roti maker and will find one or two videos.
Dwiju
ReplyDeleteThanks for enlightening me. It is useful exchanging memory of the past, I wonder how things have moved on.
With my salary of approx. Rs 500 in 1964 I cannot remember what my disposable income was but I did not have any savings when I left for the UK neither did I have any savings/bank account. I could not think of eating out except probably in Sangu valley or Shyamali. I don't remember what I did with my money. Mind you I did not have to pay house rent nor any transport costs except occassional visits to Kolkata from Durgapur.Life must have been pretty hard for an IAS family man.
I was not thinking of a family, it seems Kolkata is the cheapest place to survive without relying on charity.
Dadamoni