Story of appams

 

These golden appams have a special place in my heart. This is unfermented appam and no rice is used. Only skinless split moth bean dal, moong dal and bit of lentil. Soak overnight and next day, grind to a fine paste along with some green chillies, ginger and salt. Once the batter is ready give it a good beat with a spatula or a beater. Add finely chopped coriander leaves.

Me and my second younger brother had morning school while the other two had afternoon school. Our timing was 7.30 to 1 pm and theirs 1.30 to 5 pm. We would hardly meet. Also me and my bro had to wake up early for the morning school. Because I used to heat water for bath on the stove and once my water was hot I would keep another vessel for him. Later mom needed the stove for preparing breakfast. We lived in bank quarters and we did have a boiler in the bathroom which was always in a state of constant repair. 

We also had a gas stove. Gas cylinders were costly and were used only in times of emergency or sudden visit by guests. Standing in line at the ration shop and fetching sugar and kerosene oil for the stove were my responsibility. Though there were no cell phones or whatsapp in those times we always somehow knew when stocks would be available at the ration shop. 'ration madde raakel (kerosene), saakhar aale' loukar java'..otherwise stock would be over soon, not only that the ration shop owners would sell their wheat, rice, sugar, oil etc to the other grocers at a higher price and we ration card owners would be left in the lurch. 

Let me come back to these appams ..we call them aappo in konkani. Sunday was the only day we could have breakfast together. I would wake early and help Amma in preparing the chutney which was manual, on the grinding stone, which I enjoyed immensely.   Once everybody was up, we would sit around the stove and Amma served us hot appams..two each. It was a heavy cast iron appam griddle which could make 12 appams at a time. Amma is a good cook. Whatever she prepared turned out /turns out really yummy. Sundays were special. Afternoon she made us chicken curry or pulav..evening ended with amma preparing fried snacks, rose milk or ice cream all home made,and then all of us watching a movie on Doordarshan. If it were an art movie..brothers would go play cricket, sister and mom would go to their friends' place. Only me and dad would watch Basu bhattacharya films. We did not have friends...😊👍

Story of appam ends here 😊😊