Eating “Choori” in Digital Age

Yesterday my wife baked us “rotis” (rounded thin breads made of flour and baked on flat pan, called “tawa”). But this time instead of wheat flour, she used flour made from fresh corn – called “Makai ki Roti.” And we ate this sweet smelling bread with “saag” (spinach cooked in oil with lot of spices) – believe me anyone who has not tasted this dish, has missed a lot (so next time you are in Pakistan, insist your host to treat you with saag, bread made from corn, different from corn flour available the world over, and homemade butter).

And whenever the “makai ki roti” is baked, a few are set aside to make “choori.” Don’t know what choori is? OK let me explain how choori is made. Any number of “makai ki roti” are put in a utencil, and is minced with hands while it is still steaming hot (I admire our female folk who do this with their bare hands and almost burn their fingers with the steam oozing out of still hot bread). While it is being minced, butter and sugar is also mixed with it and the three substances are continued to be minced until sugar is no more felt as an alien. And then we all eat the “choori” as a very indigenous desert.

Now why mention digital age? OK let me tell you this as well. While I was eating “choori” with the spoon as seen in the photo above (I shot with my cellular phone camera), my son came in and I asked him to have the desert. Instead of eating with the spoon, he  started eating choori with his fingers – that is using all but one (small finger) fingers, compressing the substance, making a non regular shaped ball – let me tell you that in villages people still eat choori this way and it is fun eating it. So when I asked him why he was not using the spoon, his digital age reply came very interestingly, “it is easier to compress the choori this way like a zip file.”

Did you smile? Well I don’t know about you, but I definitely did and I told him that he had given me a new topic for my today’s blog. And before you end reading, do plan on eating “choori, duly compressed by your fingers like a zip file” on your first available opportunity. Happy eating (in advance).

And before I close the post, let me apprise my readers that long time back there was a song by the late Noor Jahan “Gandlan da saag tey makhnan makai” (Spinach with buttered corn bread) which was very popular. The song in the Punjabi language was about a girl bringing to her lover the spinach and the corn bread specially prepared in butter.  I would like my readers to click the link given below to enjoy the beautiful song, while closing my blog for the day.

Noor Jehan - Gandlan da saag tey makhan makai

PS: The photo above shows a portion of the "makai ki roti" and below it is the choori