Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
preparation and consumption index other elements of social status and life, condensing
ideas about class, bodies, and work.
Barley says: “My husk is hard, so pound me with the pestle to bare my head
Grind me fine and sift me twice and my worth is twice all other grains.”
Barley is hard to prepare; it is difficult to grind and requires double sifting. Its nutrition is
double what other grains possess. The couplet's meaning is also double, I'm told. On the
one hand the double effort required to prepare barley yields double nourishment; on the
other hand, in modern times, as I was frequently advised, “no one” eats barley. This is partly
because it is viewed as a low-class food, perhaps precisely because it gave people strength for
hard labor. But the other reason that barley is no longer much consumed is because modern
people lack the “digestive power” to benefit from its superior nutrients. This kind of causal
circularity is indicative of the situation of village eaters in modern times.
Rajasthanis in this particular region think of corn bread—round, unleavened—as their
most indigenous, down-home grain food. They staunchly argued against my assertion
that corn was indigenous to my native land. This was inconceivable to Rajasthanis in the
Banas Basin region. Cornbread is part of regional identity, and here is what Ugma Mali's
corn claims:
Corn says: “I wear a braid!
Should you wish to relish me
You must own a healthy buffalo.”
This couplet is nostalgic for a flavorful and rich remembered diet, linked to more gen-
eralized health and eating pleasures ascribed to days gone by (possibly viewed through
rose-tinted lenses). In this relished past, there were more dairy animals because there was
more grazing land. Moreover, more dairy products were consumed in the village, rather
than exported to town in exchange for cash as they are today. Most delectable in the win-
ter, corn bread should be eaten warm with yogurt and a nice big lump of brown sugar—a
highly satisfying meal (to which I may personally testify). The buffalo is necessary to pro-
vide the rich yogurt without which, people say, corn bread cannot be properly enjoyed.
This couplet reflects an ideal for farmers who have prospered in traditional terms.
I always had to testify with extreme enthusiasm to my genuine passion for cornbread.
People who happily consumed cornbread in their own diets made the false assumption
that a foreigner such as myself would, by nature, prefer wheat. Once I actually convinced
someone that I too genuinely enjoyed this thick country bread, they would discuss this
predilection approvingly. Liking cornbread said something about who I was in relation to
who they were. Although my wearing of locally made lakh bangles evoked similar com-
mentary, people knew I might take them off in the United States; food consumed creates a
more enduring self and bond.
Contrast the boasts of barley about nutrition; and of corn about pleasure, with the
words of wheat, which are all about class:
Wheat says: “My belly's grooved, and the great big merchant eats me.”
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