Sevai AND MY NOSTALGIA

Sevai AND MY NOSTALGIA

Now, in Chennai almost in all marriages sevai has caught a special place in the Tiffin varieties served. Sevai is served in the form of Coconut sevai or Lemon sevai unlike in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala especially Trivandrum, where Sevai is served with puliseri/more kuzhambu and papad as combo, deliciously prepared. i happened to taste the sevai served in one of the marriages in Chennai. Frankly speaking it was not the Original sevai at all. It did not have the aroma of the boiled rice and coconut oil used in Sevai. i know very well that it was the 5 mts sevai, sold in most of the departmental stores. Now we get even Ready to eat sevai in all the departmental stores. But sorry! It is not the Sevai either i am talking about! i very well know that it is definitely not possible to prepare the original sevai for a big crowd as it is a tedious process. Most of the Chennaites are not much familiar with the Sevai about which i am talking here. Or probably the people whom I have come across so far are not familiar with this dish. They quite often get confused with Sevai and Idiappam. The process of preparing idiappam with raw rice flour is different and the taste differs. The taste of sevai in the dinner evoked my memories of younger days.

Sevai is one of my all time favourite dishes. It is quite popular among the Brahmin community of southern parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Whenever my grandma soaked boiled rice for Sevai she would announce
“Hei kuttigala, (hei children), inniku tiffin sevai. Enaku thevai ungal SEVAI!( today’s Tiffin is Sevai. I need your SEVAI (in English it means service) to prepare Sevai.)
Whenever she announced Sevai we all would jump in joy! But if she mentioned SEVAI we would withdraw!! Because preparing sevai in conventional method was/is a tedious job. Sevai preparation had always been a ceremony like in our house those days. Mostly Saturday or Sunday would be chosen as an auspicious day for preparing Sevai!
After soaking it for 3 to 4 hrs she would grind it in kallural (conventional manual stone grinder). Mostly, 3 to 4 kg of rice for 20 to 25 people. We were in a joint family of 10 cousins and 12 elders as most of the time her sister’s family from Cochin would join. At this juncture the problem would start. Among the elders the male members would not come to kitchen. Among the females the daughters in law would not join the process saying one or the other reason and would take care of kitchen. Then my mother would take care of washing utensils, drawing water from the well etc. So we were the one who had to help her. Here I have to mention about my grandma, my mother’s mother. She had full control over the family and the whole village as well. She was a terror to many. We used to call her Indira Ghandi: the iron lady of the house. She drew respect from all in the village!

Malu… come and give a hand in grinding... she would call authoritatively
Patti ….mmm I have lot to study and prepare for my test.(.by now whe would start weeping). So..…she would be trembling. But her book would be upside down and she would pretend as if she was seriously doing her lessons.
Madav why don’t you? This guy though he would never tremble .knew better to put butter words
O Patti definitely I would have helped you...but as you know I have to get 100 marks in maths this time. otherwise you will not sign my progress card…don’t you remember your words…so I am working out maths!! This madav would plead one of my other cousins to go as his substitute…but
NO I will not. last time igot only 38 marks in science and since patti would not sign my progress card I just changed that in to 83..but you betrayed me revealing the secret to patti… aasa dosa applam vadai I will not..
Patti yesterday I only massaged your leg! So look for some one else! This was another cousin
Patti if all of them come then I will also join.. this was mine...
Patti would be at the height of her temper, rolling her eyes and looking for a stick around…
Immediately we all would unite (unity is strength!!!) An emergency meeting would be arranged. Secretly certain things would be decided. For instance...who would get more shares of papads...that had to be given to whom?! Share of sevai...percentage of sharing…I will give this dress to you and you give me your earrings etc etc sort of briberies in the form of dress, mangoes, gooseberries, cosmetics, code words, game boards, border during the sleep under the fan (as under one fan all had to lie down)… all would be decided, exchanged….finally one by one following and confirming the agreements would start helping patti.
We would include two elders in our group. my mother and patti’s sister from Cochin, who would help us generously giving more sevai, papads, juice and Kerala palpayasam or popularly “ambalapuzha payasam” in which these two are specialists, would prepare specially for us without the knowledge of patti. In return we would help them for a movie in the open air screened near the temple once in a while, secretly, is a different story altogether.
Then Patti after grinding it would make the batter in to a mass by stirring it in a big kadai, a second process. Then this mass would be made in to medium sized balls and these balls would be put in a big vessel in the water when the water started boiling. Now the aroma of the balls boiling in the water would spread through out the house. Once it was boiled then the final stage….the toughest stage of the whole process. The balls would be put in a sevai nazhi- a stand which would have small cup like structure at the bottom having very very small holes around and would have a screw jack above. One ball would be put in the centre in to the cup and the screw jack would be turned down to press and squeeze the ball. Hurrah! It would come out as thread like (noodles like but very thinner than noodles with nice aroma) firm chains through the small holes, under the stand and fall in the plate kept beneath. After finising all the balls in to Sevai it would be spread in a large plate and coconut oil would be smeared over it. One would drool to have this at this stage! But this pressing and squeezing the balls would be a sweating process…one had to hold one side of screw jack handle and the other one on the other side handle. OH I forgot this nazhi was made of iron.!!!! In the mean time some us would scrap three coconuts and would grind it for puliseri. At last all our shoulders would pain but when sevai on the plate with puliseri and papad was served. Ha!!! Pain?…..gone..poyindi…poye pochu….poyallo…

After my marriage I was in Trivandrum for 8 years. Just 2 hrs drive away from my home town NGL. While there I tried to make sevai- ha one thing you know sevai nazhi was one among the seer utensils for my marriage to the surprise of all my inlaws who were not familiar with this- So whenever people from my husband’s side visited sevai would definitely take place in the menu. Then came sweet news that a mess in the Anaival Street of East Fort area where we lived started supplying sevai, puliseri and papad. I just stopped sweating with this tedious process. If I was not prepared well before and if some guests visited us, next moment I would be at the door steps of this mess. On seeing me the mess owner would give a call to the boy
“Dei ambi “sevai mami” vandrukka ketiya. Oru naalu parcel sevaiyum, puliseriyum 4 papadamum, pinne kooda randu papadamumkoodi vachu kondu va kettiya” (hei boy sevai mami has come so bring 4 sevai parcel with puliseri 4 papads and add two more papads and bring)
I became very familiar as sevai mami to him.

After much tiral and error, the process has become very simple now. Now a days Not much of sweat shedding. Not as tiring as before. Thanks to grinder or mixi, and steamer. i am making at home. Of course only with puliseri and papad as combo. The very same aromatic Sevai. The present generation of our family is familiar with sevai though they call it as “boiled rice noodles” and idiappam “raw rice noodles”. Their nomenclature may change but Sevai is Sevai.

You know my friends? When we left for the US as my husband was to be there for a project, this, my favourite Sevai nazhi took place in my check-in-luggage! Thank God the customs officers did not mistake it for some dangerous weapon!! In the US once a service person visited our apt to repair the drain hole of the kitchen basin, he was amused looking at this sevai nazhi. Out of curiosity to know about this he went on questioning about it and OMG i did not get his accent and somehow i proudly explained the process and spread the fame of Sevai as Rrice noodles! He asked me whether I could demonstrate it?!! Ha..i was speechless then fainted!

Since the process is tiresome most of the people drop down or give least preference to this delicious dish in the tiffin menu. So to help them all it would be of great SEVAI (service) to the society if some manufactures invent an electronic or electrically operated Sevai Nazhi or sevai machine. I will be very grateful to the manufacturers for taking this traditional Sevai to future generation as it makes the process simpler. It will even help Americans! Europians! Australians ! Oh how I forgot Chinese and Japanese!! They all can prepare a different kind of noodles or pasta! Especially that service man who was eager! But with a warning they should not try to patent it!!

Just thinking of announcing my family people “TODAYS TIFFIN Sevai. YOUR SEVAI (service) IS WELCOME TO PREPARE Sevai THE TRADITONAL EVER DELECIOUS DISH”

Ayyo Geeth ippadi ennai kollathe kettiya..........
We had a special hole and biiiiig ulakkai and nazhi with a stand to pizhinjify sevai in our thavaram in Trivandrum....More than the fresh sevai....pazham sevai with puliseri and pappad is tastier and popular....mmmmm..Tnx for bringing back those memories...
Love
Meena

Dear Geeth
After reading your great writeup I have to share this with you.. at my place my husband cooks sevai on a regular basis. we found a particular brand of rice noodles and have devised a way to cook it .. It resembles our sevai ditto.. trust me when I say that.. So hubby is the expert at this and every single person who has eaten it agree that he is v.good and sevai tastes real!
Whenever i ask him, "Can you do sevai for me?".. his standard reply would be" I am doing Sevai for you everyday of my life". Thought i'll share this.. keep blogin:)

Dear Geeth,

A nice write-up again...Brought the family set-up of olden days in front of the eyes.Writing about sevai, you did a great SEVAI. It is coconut chutney which is the side dish for sevai in our house.

You made me nostalgic, too..

My Grandma used to prepare so many sweets and savouries. We, my Grandpa, my parents and me, would all sit in a circle, in most of the situations, to help her. The balls making in seedai, thattai flatterning, pressing adhirasam to take out excess oil, stirring when making halwa, burfi and mysorepak, shaping a savoury called 'sangu' with a specially made mould, making laddus, kadalai urundais...O where am I? Am I replying or lost in my evergreen memories....

Now, we can still make those snacks...But, where are my Grandma and Grandpa?

Sorry that I'm sadly nostalgic towards the end...

Dear Geeth,

You did indeed bring back some sweet memories for me too. My mom used to make sevai the traditional way. And yes, everytime sevai was the tiffin, my brother and me were assigned duties to take charge of the nazhi. Well , i used to do the initial : pizhinjifying" and then towards the end, when it was more difficult to get the nazhi to rotate, then bro would take over. Hey once, my dad called a whole bunch of people and threw a sevai party. Starters to main course and dessert all sevai.. You can imagine the plight of my bro and me. Needless to say we both have very strong arms now!!

Lovely writeup. Yes the art of sevai making is lost now. But it was such a lovely way of bonding in the family too. My mom still has the Sevai nazhi, and a hand cranked coffee grinder too...... And some day it will be mine!!

Vandhana

Hi Geeth,

You have rekindled my Sevai memories. We lived in a small town in Karnataka in the 70's and during one of our visits to Chennai, my mom purchased a sevai nazhi from Ratna Stores. We were all young and mom used to make the sevai herself with help from a neighbourhood Aunty who was also fond of sevai. This nazhi had holes only in the bottom and not in the sides, so mom was not happy with it. On a later visit to Chennai, she got Ratna Stores to get holes pierced in the sides. Our turn to help in squeezing came and I always liked the smell of hot sevai coming out of the nazhi. Till date she makes Sevai using boiled rice and sprinkles coconut oil on top. I am planning to get a nazhi next time I visit India.

Originally Posted by meenakrishnan

Ayyo Geeth ippadi ennai kollathe kettiya..........
We had a special hole and biiiiig ulakkai and nazhi with a stand to pizhinjify sevai in our thavaram in Trivandrum....More than the fresh sevai....pazham sevai with puliseri and pappad is tastier and popular....mmmmm..Tnx for bringing back those memories...
Love
Meena

Dear meena
iyyo naan unnai kollalai kettiya!
yes even our house at our village in NGL had a hole and ulakkai and nazhi to pizhinjify sevai. infact i mentioned about this in my nostalgia but some how got missed when i posted it. but could not insert it now. anyway i am happy that you have mentioned it in your post. thanks a lot! Appuram enna vishayamaakum?

love
geeth

Originally Posted by anandchitra

Dear Geeth
After reading your great writeup I have to share this with you.. at my place my husband cooks sevai on a regular basis. we found a particular brand of rice noodles and have devised a way to cook it .. It resembles our sevai ditto.. trust me when I say that.. So hubby is the expert at this and every single person who has eaten it agree that he is v.good and sevai tastes real!
Whenever i ask him, "Can you do sevai for me?".. his standard reply would be" I am doing Sevai for you everyday of my life". Thought i'll share this.. keep blogin:)

Dear chitra,
it is great and am happy to know that your husband ccoks sevai on a regular basis!! that too with a specially devised method with rice noodles!!!! then i wish iget a chance to taste it!!!!! enjoyed the last lines... thanks a lot!

love
geeth

dear vandana,
first of all oru shastangamana to your mother, you and your brother!!!1Sevai for a party!!!!!! i could now immagine the scene how yo would have.....nice sharing of you! thanks a lot!!

love
geeth

Dear nivedi,
loved your post coz just like me you too like that aroma!!!!!! yeah definitely buy that nazhi please....of course with side holes too..from your mother's experience you might have learnt it...thanks a lot for the response.

love
geeth