Recently Ashish Vidyathi was seen exploring the Gowda Cuisine and from his videos and photos that he posted it’s evident that he loved it through and through. He took to Instagram and wrote “He wrote on Instagram “Behind The Scenes of the Super Meal @kripalamanna and Me Shared at Gowdara Mudde Mane in Namma Bengaluru 😍🤤❤️Have you watched this amazing vlog yet? We drench ourselves in the love of Gowda Cuisine”. He further went on to explain how to eat it saying, just break the mudde and dip it in the mutton curry and don’t chew it, just eat it at ease.
Understanding the basics of Gowda cuisine, it is rustic and robust. Interestingly Karnataka as a state sees a lot of diverse flavours when it comes to food as it has the flavourful Konkan coastline, the Catholics communities and of course not o miss the Gowdas. All of these give the Kannadiga cuisine it’s unique identity and all the little nuances in flavours, ingredients and more. Talking of the Gowdas, they have always been known as the farming community, and most of their food came from what they grew in the farms which also included the livestock. So it’s evident that the community literally loves it’s meat and most meals in homes always feature mutton as the main dish. It’s only in special festive occasion that the homes see vegetarian food being served.
The main dishes from the cuisine includes holige (a lentil-stuffed flatbread), ragi mudde (millet flour balls which are typically eaten in rural Karnataka state), mamsada saaru (stewed mutton), along with some traditional Gowda sweets for dessert. The Gowda cuisine sees the extensive use of coriander garlic and coconut ground along with their iconic kachimpuli. Along with these one of the prominent dish happens to be Ragi mudde which is the main food in Mandya, Hassan, Mysore, Tumkur districts. Paired with mutton curry this one is real delight. This finger millet balls or the Ragi Mudde is eaten with bassaru or sambar or some similar veg gravy but it pairs best with non-veg like a chicken gravy, mutton korma or pork masala that you get to eat in smaller joints in the city. This huge tennis ball sized dish is made with boiled Ragi. Soft and spongy, this one is alone is almost tasteless but with paired with a cuury/gravy the taste just elevates to another level.
And yes this mudde will also stick to your teeth, hence I guess Ashish says “Don’t chew it”. Though the exact date and place of origin of Ragi mudde is not known, but the earliest archaeologically traces can be found in the Harappan site Surkotada Kutch some 3,165 years ago. And looing closer to history we can see that Kings Hyder Ali also ate ragi when he had important matters to attend to.
Hence this humble Ragi mudde may not be fancy but surely much sought after dish even till date.