Teff: The Global Flour Game Created by Ruth Paget

Teff: The Global Flour Game Created by Ruth Paget 

Use: 

Droughts or floods may affect the availability of the flour you usually cook with. Knowing about other flours helps choose alternatives that may appear on supermarket shelves or what blends of flours might be like nutritionally. 

Background: 

I named this game after teff flour from Ethiopia and Eritrea in Africa. I used a reference book by British author Christine McFadden called Flour: A Comprehensive Guide to test player’s knowledge of 45 flours listed in the book. 

On the front of an index card, write the name of the flour. 

On the back of the index card, note the following information to test yourself on: 

1-plant source (cricket flour has an animal source – insects) 

2-other names for the flour, which McFadden refers to as AKA (also known as) 

3-Gluten: yes or no 

4-Protein percentage 

5-other nutrients – McFadden lists several of these, but for more detail the following websites list vitamins, minerals, and fiber: 

www.healthline.com 

www.webmed.com 

Christine McFadden’s Flour: The Comprehensive Guide can be found on Amazon and Kindle to set up the above information for the 45 flours she writes about. 

Quiz yourself on one item at a time until you know them all. 

Happy Playing! 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Relaxing at the Indian Buffet by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Relaxing at the Indian Buffet by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I loved taking my daughter Florence out for lunch at India’s Clay Oven in downtown Monterey, California with my poetry -writing friends in the late 1990s.  We all liked discussing books at our window table with a view of treetop and tourists going to Fishermans’ Wharf below at “India’s.”

Our 1990s drink orders were for chai – a spiced tea and milk drink from Central Asia that was becoming all the rage in California – and mango lhassi – a mango purée and yogurt drink that tastes like a tart milkshake.  Florence loved mango lhassis and usually ordered two.

India’s Clay Oven claimed to have eighteen items on its buffet, but they did not include all the soups or freshly chopped salad fixings and fruit in that number.

Thanks to labels above the food items, I knew that on my first visit I had filled my plate with flat, thick rounds of blistered naan bread and bright red thighs and drumsticks of tandoori chicken.  This combination is a hit everywhere in India.

These two items typify what is known a Punjabi-Moghul cuisine of Northwestern India according to Smita Chandra in her cookbook/history book entitled Cuisines of India:  The Art and Tradition of Regional Indian Cooking.

When the Punjab region became divided between India and Pakistan, Hindu refugees from Pakistan had to make new lives for themselves in India.  Many of them settled in Delhi, the capital of India’s ancient Mogul Empire and opened restaurants featuring food cooked in their traditional tandoor, a clay oven lined with charcoal.

Chandra further relates that the former chefs of the princely Northwestern Indian states, who lost their jobs after Independence had to find work much like French chefs after the French Revolution.  These chefs cooked Persian influenced Mogul cuisine featuring richly spiced curries and meat and rice and dishes; Indian food is not all vegetarian.

After several trips to “India’s,” I checked out Premila Lal’s The Complete Book of Indian Cooking to read up on tandoori chicken.  Tandoori chicken marinates in yogurt with seasonings such as lemon juice, cumin seeds, cinnamon, bay leaf, peppercorn, and cardamom.

Lal writes that a daughter-in-law knows she has been accepted into an Indian family when her mother-in-law shares the family spice recipes with her.

Lal’s cookbook share naan’s recipe as well: flour, eggs, yogurt, milk, and ghees – clarified butter.  I knew why I liked this warm naan bread so much, which has a few heat blistered spots that crunch.

My poetry writing friend Debra said I should really try the vegetable dishes, too.  I like the following tasty items:

-vegetable deep fried pakoras – potato and onion fritters

-bhartha – puréed roast eggplants with cumin, turmeric, paprika, garlic, green chilies, onion, gingerroot, and garam masala (spice combination) with sour cream

Between trips to the buffet table, we did talk about poetry like Neruda’s Birds and Rumi’s poetry of love.

Going to India’s Clay Oven was a sweet, mango lhassi lunch.  Metaphor is about all I can do in poetry.  Metre is too hard.

(Note:  India’s Clay Oven is now closed, but Ambrosia in Monterey serves wonderful food in a garden atmosphere with huge Nataraja statues from India presiding over the dining room.)

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Sampling Indian Food for Divali with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sampling Indian Food for Divali with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

My family has had fun living in Virginia and California as a military family.  We learned about Divali, the Indian Festival of Lights in Virginia thanks to our Indian neighbors. 

In fact, my fondest memories of being a Navy wife in Norfolk, Virginia, home of the largest Naval Base in the world, was swapping Christian and Hindu sweets with my Indian neighbors as we celebrated our different religious traditions.

Everyone in our apartment complex was in the Navy except for our next-door neighbors, who were from India.  They always loved talking with my daughter Florence, since their own grandchildren lived “up North.”

At Christmas, my daughter presented them with a plateful of Christmas cookies – peanut blossoms with Hershey kisses, chocolate chip cookies, Russian tea cakes and so on, she proudly said, “I made these all by myself.”

The following year in October, our next-door neighbor knocked at our door.  She told us, “These are the traditional candies we eat on our holiday of Divali.”

We thanked her and ate everything in about twenty minutes.  I took the plate back in what I thought was a polite hour later.

Our next-door neighbor invited us in when we brought the plates back.  We told her how much we liked the candies.  We sat down, and she placed more of them in front of us.

We could not stop eating the candy that came in many colors with almonds and pistachios on top called barfi.

Indians cook this treat by evaporating milk along with sugar and ghee, purified butter.

They spread the mixture on a greased, round tray called a thali, and then, cut into it.

Other sumptuous goodies we ate included nutty ball bundles called laddoos made from fried semolina flour, sugar, ghee, milk, nuts, and carrots.

The only mouthwatering sweets, though, had intriguing sweet and savory syrup on them.  They did not know the name of the ingredients in English, but several visits to India’s Clay Oven (now closed) in Monterey, California revealed what these secret ingredients were: cloves, green cardamom, black cardamom, and bay leaf.

This aromatic syrup flavored sweet rolls called gulab jamun made from milk, flour, rose essence, and ghee as well as little balls that had sugar candy inside rasgoolas.

Cooks make rasgoolas with flour and chana, a soft cheese made by adding lime juice to warm milk and then straining it through a muslin cloth.

Cooks make balls with the dough, and then, soak them for ten minutes in the syrup.

My neighbor appeared out of the kitchen with a plateful of saucer-sized orange coils that are one of the most difficult sweets to make in the Indian kitchen – jalebis.  I bit into the cold, crunchy crust of my first jalebi to discover a rose-flavored syrup inside the coil.

The tricks to achieving this culinary masterpiece are a perfect saffron-flavored dough, a coil squeezer, and warm syrup.  Cooks deep-fry the batter in ghee, and then, place them in the warm syrup.

The coils absorb the syrup, leaving the one side crunchy. Jalebis stay fresh for only one day, so my daughter and I made sure that none were wasted.

I asked what Divali celebrated.  My neighbor told me that there were two Divali stories.  The first tells that the day honors the God Rama’s coronation after he had conquered modern-day Sri Lanka after being exiled from his home.

The second story relates that the god Vishnu killed a giant demon.  His people celebrated his return with lights and decorations.  The stories’ characters differ, but both recount victory over adversity.

“The name of the festival itself,” he continued refers to the little clay lamps with oil and wicks called “dipa” set up in a row called “avali.”

Together they form, the alternative name of the festival – “Dipavali.”

My neighbor said that Indians celebrate Divali by doing things such as buying new clothes, buy new accounting ledgers, and lighting fireworks.  Most importantly, Indians say prayers to Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, asking her to visit their homes.

I said, “I think Lakshmi has already visited me” which made the neighbors laugh.

Note:  Parts of this story were printed in The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200, 000).

You can sample Indian food at the Ambrosia Restaurant in downtown Monterey, California.  They have a nice lunch buffet and lovely dinners.  I like lamb vindaloo (spicy) and mango lhassis (mango yogurt drinks).  They also have lovely, bronze Nataraja sculptures located around the restaurant.

You can buy ingredients for making Indian food at home at the Asia-Pacific Market on Reservation Road in Marina, California.  They sometimes sell live crab, spices in bulk, and have tropical fruit for sale.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Attending a Hindu Ganesh Puja with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending a Hindu Ganesh Puja with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

One day as I was going through Florence’s weekly parent papers from her Waldorf School, I found an invitation to a Ganesh Puja. 

I knew the children were studying mythology and world religions at school and this optional activity supported that.  I was happy someone invited us to their home to participate in this activity.  I wanted to go, and my husband agreed that it would be a good introduction to the culture of India.

I liked getting the invitation, but it took some time to decipher.  It read as follows:

-       You are cordially invited for Ganesh Puja and Resurgence (Visarjan)

-       4 pm

-       Puja, Bhajans, and Potluck

We were to give our RSVP to the school office.

I asked Florence about Ganesh, the elephant god.

“We have been writing stories about him and drawing pictures of him,” she said.

“Typical Waldorf,” I thought to myself.

“He helps people get their dreams,” she continued.

After that comment, I looked up Ganesh in one of my mythology dictionaries and saw that he was described as “the remover of obstacles.”

I closed the book and talked with Florence.  “Your mom and dad are your Ganeshas.  We’ll do all we can to help you get your dreams,” I said.

“How would you like to eat at an Indian restaurant before we go to the Ganesh Puja?” I asked.

Florence knew the restaurant I was talking about and wanted to go, because I did lunches there with my writing group.  (I love chicken vindaloo, naan bread, spinach saag, and eggplant bartha.)

When we went to the Indian restaurant, I felt like I was Indiana Jones on an icon hunt.  I did not have to look very long to find a Ganesh decoration that I had overlooked on my previous visits.  Right at the entrance, the restaurant had a large stained glass window with Ganesh in it.

I showed Florence the stained glass window and said, “Look how Ganesh is dancing on the rat’s back.  The rat stands for your enemies,” I said.

“It does not,” Florence snapped.  “It stands for evil – bad stuff.”

I laughed and said with an increasingly high-pitched voice, “Mom is mean, scary, and heinous just like the Wicked Witch!”

“You are.  Be nice.  We’re in a restaurant,” Florence said as we were shown to our table.

Florence ate tandoori chicken that had been baked in a clay oven and naan bread.  She drank a sweet mango laasi made with yogurt and mangos.  Ganesh mom, me, had her usual order with nimbu pani to drink.  Nimbu pani is a sweet soda with spices sprinkled on top.

I asked Florence what the words on our Ganesh Puja invitation meant.

“Pujas are prayer rituals,” she said.  “We made clay Ganesh elephants to throw in the Carmel River as part of the puja,” she continued.

“Mud in the pebble stream,” I thought of our drought-stricken river.

“What are bhajans?”  I asked as I got another mango laasi for Florence.

“They are songs.  They tell about Hindu gods.  Our teacher sings them in Sanskrit and no one understands them,” she said.

I wanted Florence to learn about world religions and mythology to be a world citizen, but I also wanted to know exactly what went on in the classroom, too.  I was going to look at her drawings and “textbooks” that she wrote herself after that.  I trusted her teacher (he had a master's degree from Stanford), but I have always believed that parents should do things outside of class to support the curriculum.

We finished our Ksatriya caste warrior-king meals with rice pudding and got ready for the Ganesh Puja the next day.  We arrived at the appointed hour at a private home in Carmel.

We took off our shoes in the entry hall.  We looked at framed photos all around the house of bare feet in silver trays of water with flower petals strewn on them.  An altar with statues and flowers had been set up.

The puja began at 4 pm.  We sat on the floor and bhajans were said in Sanskrit.  The bhajans lasted two hours.

At the end of the bhajans, our host told us Ganesh broke off one of his tusks so that humans could write.  Writing and literature are still very important in the culture of India; I loved knowing the origins of Indian literary culture.  After a question-and-answer period, we set out for the Carmel River to toss in the Ganesh clay figurines.

I was thankful for the opportunity to be part of a home-based religious ceremony.  I wanted to know more about India, because I knew it was becoming the world’s most populous country.  I wished the Indian community would do cultural festivals at Monterey’s Wharf like the Greeks, Turks, and Italians, so I could learn more about the dancing, art, food, and music of the country. 

Most of all, I wanted adults to have the opportunity to learn about other cultures and not just children.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Attending Dance Performances from India and Senegal (Africa) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Attending Dance Performances from India and Senegal (Africa) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I happily brought my young daughter Florence to all the free programs and activities for children that Madison (Wisconsin) offered to them when I lived there like the free zoo and year-round performances by entertainers, who came to perform at the Civic Center Auditorium.  I found out about this programming in the local newspapers’ print versions, which is probably offered online now as well.

My favorite venue for year-round children’s entertainment was the Olbrich Botanical Gardens and Bolz Conservatory, which offered a dance series for children and scavenger hunts that were fun and educational at the same time.

I took my daughter to the first of a fabulous dance series of programs for children called Children of the Rainforest at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens and had just as much fun as she did.  The first set of shows in the series was called Dances of India.  The show was made up of six dance sequences that used song, dance, storytelling, and poetry.  The dance sequences were called: Jungle symphony, Tippani, Mayur Dance, Ferris Wheel, Garba, and Village Mother.

The music of Anand Shankar evoked the rain forest as young dancers enacted elements of the jungle including the gentle and savage in the Jungle Symphony presentation.

The Tippani dance presentation featured a “functional” dance of India.  It is called functional, because it helps with work.  In this case, it is used to help women of the Saurastra to give them rhythm to their chore of beating the mud floor of a house during construction.

The Mayur Dance is the Peacock Dance and featured the peacock opening its feathers to dance.  Dancers gently informed children of the wheel of life in the Ferris Wheel dance.  Finally, the Village Mother dance taught about greed and the Earth’s resources. 

This dance series was such a loving way to teach children to love nature, other cultures, traditional art forms, and beauty. 

About two weeks later, I took my daughter to see an African dance troupe.  The introduction to this group in the brochure described various dances coming from different countries: Gumboot Dance (South Africa), Che Che Kule (Ghana – Twi people), Goombe (Liberia), Drum Call (West Africa), Kou Kou (Guinea), and Dounba, Dance of Joy (Senegal).

The Gumboot Dance was created by South African miners who wore big rubber boots to work accocrding to the brochure handed out.  Che Che Kule was a lot of fun.  It is a call and response game of Ghana that the audience participates in with response, but also with movement, song and rhythm.

Drum Call could have been the basis of an adult symphony orchestra.  It featured a Djimbe orchestra “using rhythms from 13^th and 14^th century West Africa” according to the guide.

My favorite dance had everyone in the audience up on their feet dancing.  This was the Dance of Joy from Senegal.  First, the dancers individually showed off their best moves and then everyone in the group was asked to get up and improvise based on the rhythms.  My daughter and I were the last people to leave this show; I like to dance a lot.

We especially went to the Olbrich Botanical Garden’s Bolz Conservatory to visit the tropical plant conservatory in winter.  They had several informative guides for visitors.  My favorite one was the one on Indian plants.  We liked looking at fish in the many ponds and trying to find plants that matched the drawings in the plant guide that was really a scavenger hunt.

The introduction to the guide and scavenger hunt said that 15% of the Earth’s people live in India.  The guide was also a pharmacopoeia and cooking lesson for adults.  The plants we had to find included pomegranate, scarlet ginger-lily, papaya, tamarind, fig, hibiscus, kumquat, lemon, angel-wing jasmine, coffee, coconut palm, banana, bamboo, black pepper, and acacia.

I always like learning new things and tried to impart that way of looking at the world to my daughter at Olbrich Botanical Gardens.  It was nice to learn things in the warm Bolz Conservatory in a Wisconsin winter, too; I thought that the Olbrich Botanical Gardens and its programs should have been headline news sometimes.

By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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