THE PEOPLE

FOOD

THE DIETARY AND FOOD HABITS OF THE PEOPLE OF RATNAGIRI have their regional peculiarities pertaining to Konkan distinguishing them from the general pattern of Maharashtra.

Among the well-to-do rice is the staple food suplemented now-a-days because of food rationing with a quantity of wheat. Meals are taken at noon and after sunset. With the rice is taken some ghee (clarified butter), a curry or amtl of split pulse, onions, spices and a tamarind or kokam dressing, and vegetables fried in sweet oil, spiced and preferably added with some fresh cocoanut scraping. Buttermilk (taka) is so indispensable with Brahmans that almost every house, except the poorest, keeps a cow or buffalo. Catanis, koshimbirs, lonace, papad, and sandage are the usual adjuncts to a meal among the well-to-do.

The lower classes eat nacani instead of rice, and the poorest van and harik, an unwholesome grain unless soaked in hot water, and udid, a pulse cheaper than gram or tur. The morning beverage of weak rice-water pej, still holds its pride of place in the people's daily diet. Every day before going out Senavis (Gaud Sarasvat Brahmins) and all classes, except strict Brahmins, take a draught of pej, and with it a small quantity of fresh cocoanut kernel, a papad or some vegetable. The object of the early draught of rice-water is said to be to guard against the heat of the sun and to keep off attacks of biliousness. The midday meal is then taken at about 1 p.m. Brahmans, who cannot break their fast before washing, take their morning meal at a much earlier hour than is usual elsewhere. However, the morning tea with some snacks has nowadays become current with all except the poor. The cultivators usually start their day with a morning breakfast consisting of nacani bread with roasted dried fish followed by pej, and have two full meals both consisting of rice and dal or fish curry, and occasionally some vegetable.

The culinary art of the people as expressed in their daily food, feast menus and holiday dishes, has its own peculiarities, every caste-group claiming some distinguishing features.

Rice being the staple food of the people, the cereal predominates in many of their food items. It is used in two forms: ukda (parboiled) made of paddy halfboiled before it is pounded to remove chaff; and surai made without boiling the paddy. In the preparation of boiled rice, generally two processes are followed: one known as betha bhat is prepared by boiling the rice (cleaned and washed) in about twice the quantity of water till it swells soft; for the other kind known as velana bhat the rice is boiled in an excess quantity of water and then strained dry when the grain gets sufficiently soft. The strained rice-water may be salted to taste and drunk as velani pej. The rice is eaten with different kinds of curries or amtis of which a peculiar kind made either of vegetables and pulses or fish is known as sambare. Amti is generally prepared of tur split pulse and is spiced with goda masala and a phodani of jire (cumin seed) and asafcetida; gur and tamarind are its necessary adjuncts. Sambare has a thicker consistency than that of amti and is prepared from a variety of pulses and ingredients such as hot spices, onion, scraped cocoanut all fried in oil and pasted on a curry-stone are its special adjuncts.

Several special dishes are prepared chiefly from rice-flour. Ayate, kayalolya, ghavan, and pole are pan-cakes, each prepared according to its kind, after mixing the flour in water, butter-milk or milk and adding to it a little salt and gur, scrapped cocoa-kernel, chopped green chillies, coriander leaves, onion, etc., and the mixture poured and spread over heated oil or ghee in a pan and fried. Amboli is a similar pan-cake thicker in kind and prepared from rice and udid-flour mixed together in water and fermented overnight. Of the same mixture are prepared idalis by steaming them in small dishes in a closed vessel. Vade, gharge, and unde are cakes made from dough of rice and udid-pulse flour and fried in deep oil. Vades are flat and round like puris; gharge are similar to vade but the dough is sweetened with gur and pumpkin, cucumber, etc. boiled soft; undes are globular in size. Patolya: about an ounce of kneaded rice-flour dough is spread on a green turmeric leaf to a thickness of a wafer-biscuit; an ounce of scrapped cocoa-kernel sweetened with molasses is laid on the dough, the leaf is folded double, and such patolyas are steamed in a number. Sevaya (vermicelli), kneaded and boiled rice-flour pressed through a metal plate pierced with small holes, are eaten with milk of green cocoa-kernel mixed with gur, Sandans are made of rice-flour (granules), cocoanut milk and juice of ripe mangoes or jack-fruit; they are cooked in steam like pudding. Cavdas are fried wheat-flour wafers overlaid with thin layer of sugar; nevris are bow-shaped wheat-flour cakes stuffed with a mixture of scrapped cocoa-kernel, pieces of cashew-nut, sesame, etc. and sugar or molasses. The popular holiday dish for many is khir, that is rice-porridge mixed with molasses and cocoanut milk, served with vade.

TABLE I.

AREA, HOUSES AND POPULATION FROM 1901 TO 1951. District Ratnagiri.

•Figures for 1951 only include those. for the mergea area of the former Sawantwadi State.

TABLE II.

CIVIL CONDITION BY AGE PERIODS (ALL COMMUNITIES) District Ratnagiri. 1911.

TABLE II.—contd. 1931.

TABLE II—contd. 1951 (Sample population).

TABLE III.

LANGUAGE (MOTHER-TONGUE). District Ratnagiri.

TABLE IV.

POPULATION BY RELIGION FROM 1881 TO 1951. District Ratnagiri.

continued..

TABLE V.

POPULATION BY TALUKA FROM 1901 TO 1951. DISTRICT RATNAGIRI.

continued..

* The total is for Sawantwadi State before the merger,

TABLE VI.

URBAN AREA, HOUSES AND INMATES 1951. District Ratnagiri.