The Ancient Art of Making Gurrha

GURR AND BAIREE

Zeejah!

Khuda aap say samjhe. Why did you have to write this article? As an avid Gurr lover it not only brought back some “sweet” memories but it also caused my mouth to water. I miss nothing more than Gurr in this country. In Detroit the only Gurr that is available is Indian and it is better to eat a fist full of sand from Lake Huron than to eat it. They make godaweful gurr.

I remember going to my Khala’s (aunt) village when I was a schoolboy, during vacations-sometimes in winters and sometimes in summer. My favorite was the sugarcane season (Nov to Feb) when temperatures in our part of the world are milder and wind just becomes so intoxicating. The Gurr making “plant” was set up at the Dera. A Dera is usually a very small collection of houses-four to five- away from the village where usually watchmen and tube-well operators live with their families. Whenever I would visit my Khala, my cousins and I would go to Dera and live a couple of days there. We would usually get there on horses. My cousins had two and then their friends would bring one or two more and all of us six or eight guys would go together. I used to be a lousy horse rider-still am. I would always refuse to ride with them ‘cause they would always make their horses stand on their hind legs whenever I was sitting with any one of them or they would make it run like hell and scared the living day lights out of me. So there was a mare reserved for me whose name was “Maasi Museebtay”. This mare was just what I needed. It had brakes but no accelerator. It was called Maasi Museebtay ‘cause it would just stop somewhere when it felt like it and no matter what you tried it wouldn’t move. That was the museebat part. One of the farmers then discovered that if she was offered Gurr she would move.

Dera used to be fun. We could play cards all night and smoke Huqqa and cigarettes without any fear of Khaaloo Ji, all night long. Sometimes we used to stake out and shoot pigs and boars, which would invade sugarcane fields in hordes during night. In the morning our first ritual used to be to take a bath at the tube-well. There is no feeling like standing in front of a five-inch diameter pipe spewing water with a thrust that would throw a grown up man feet away. No one used to care about wearing any underwear except me; I would always take bath in my shalwar. The only mission in the lives of my cousins in those days used to be to strip me off my shalwar. They would usually mow me down on the ground together and strip me naked. I wouldn’t mind that much but then they would always throw it on top of a Bairee tree. Bairee is a tree that yields a fruit called “bair”-also called as poor man’s apple. The tree has an inch long spikes on its branches and would trap anything. Usually it is a miracle if a piece of cloth stuck in it comes back in one complete piece. So the fun part (theirs) used to be the part when I threw stones and jump naked to get my shalwar off the tree.

The crushing of sugarcane and making of Gurr used to start early in the morning. They had a small old-fashioned flour-mill at the Dera which used to run with a diesel engine and made the typical “kook” “kook” noise when it ran. The breakfast was usually sweet rice cooked in gurr or a sweet corn bread also sweetened with gurr. Some used to drink milk with that, some “roh” sugarcane juice, and yet others lassi. A special bowl of tea was always made specifically for me and everybody considered me a freak of nature. Those were the worry free days when only worry on my mind used to be the shooting grass, flies, and mosquitoes negotiating with my behind when I used to go in a sugarcane field early in the morning for you know what.

Re: scout

``I miss chewing on fresh, cool, juicy sugarcanes in the summer.``

You can get some in the Caribbean stores in New York but they are usually old and have a funky taste.

Venki#11

I tried a few more variations of this recipie. Like boiling rice with fresh sugarcane juice in open pot till the whole mixture thickens. Put some resins, cashewnuts etc as garnishing. It is too sweet but what the heck, I like it. I wonder if you have spent the whole night beside the concrete container or ``bhatthi`` as called in N. India, where sugarcane juice is boiled to gurh, enjoying roasted potatoes with salt and chatting.

Sweet memories of childhood!

Cheers

Very sweet article. I think I have read it somewhere else too.

In S India distribution of gurhh, sugar, dessicated coconut - signifies a happy occasion. Dont know if it is the same elsewhere. I remember coming home(remorsefully) many a time with god-awful report-cards only to face my wicked mother grinning away - ``gurrh/shakkar baanto, lagtha hai bacchi phir-se distinction se pass hui hai``. baahhh horrible thing to do to a child!!!

ba-kait - ``gurh fried in ghee``

-- But wont taht caramelize/treacle`ize it? And is it tasty?? Interesting !!

aicha

Amazing . . . pongal dishes from Madras featured at chowk. Neat!

My memories of sugarcane being turned into ``gur`` involve (in Iran as well as in India) one part of the process being slightly different:- producing a deadly brew, often called ``Laal Pari`` (Red Fairy) . . . this was the sugarcane juice mixed with all sorts of ``accelerators`` (honest, that is the name given to a concoction of chemicals which turns the juice into booze in about 12-24 hours, I am told it is made of rotten banana peels) while hot, then stored in ``matkaas`` (earthen pots) buried underground on slow fire for a day or so. Then pulled out and consumed.

Another interesting fact: during the `71 Indo-Pak war, sugarcane juice was used, mixed with diesel, in army trucks. On both sides.

Good for gurrah!! Hurrah for gur.

The most flavorful sugar you can get in the US goes by the trade name Sucanat. It is expensive and is available probably only in natural food stores and the like.

It is simply solidifed and crystallized sugar cane juice. Almost better than the raw stuff I used to love (called ``Karuppatti`` in Tamil for black slab) in my childhood.

re: Post #4 Scout

Hey I thought I was the only one that found the fruits bland in NorthAmerica. Good to see someone else shares the view.

Zeejah, good article, brings back lots of memories!

--cheers

Lyahus

Now if only I could find some Gurh in Ottawa :-(

There are few smells as heady as the smell of freshly made gurh and nothing like a tall steel glass of tea with a lump of gurh to go with.

Been years since I had gurh fried in ghee....

Thanks Zeejah for this tasty thing.

This was very sweet!

Ras

Zeejah ,

That was a very informative , though lethal article ! Thanks for enlightening us on the process !Sounds like a wonderful family activity !

And all this while my kids were quite happy going to the pumkin farms, choosing the largest pumpkin , and carving it with me, and their priceless sculptures were admired by us till next Haloween ! how boring that sounds after reading this !

Good for you Zeejah !You are a Great Grandmother !

God Bless !

love,

Shirin

does anybody know how to make gurrkh key chawal

nice one Zeejah.... I`d never heard of this process. Thanks for sharing it with us.

I miss chewing on fresh, cool, juicy sugarcanes in the summer.

These Amreekan fruits like bland apples and bitter grapefruits don`t compare to what we have back home.

(ok, I`m expecting someone to ask me, what the hell are you doing here if you don`t like the fruits)

:)

Now this has thrown me back 20 years... and here am I, 12 yr old sitting in front of the veillna pushing those juicy sugarcanes in to be squeezed into rauH.

As for as I know 20/25 years ago Nov to January/February was the guRh season and farmers were busy cutting their sugarcane, cleaning it, sqeezing the juice(rauH), boiling it in the big bowl(called kaRaaha in our part of the world) untill it beocomes semi-solid into the guRh. This semisolid guRh was then cooled in tre big tray made of wood or earthren pot, shaking with ramba until it turns into solid guRh.

Our part of the Punjab was not very good at growing sugarcane and most farmers used to grow enough for their own use and some more that they can sell in the local market only. So our extended family(of 5 nucleus families) used to share one Veillna. It was a spot in the middle of our farms set aside only for this purpose. A heavy weiight veillna, a big chulla, kaRaha, and other accessories were available for all to use. Nov to Feb is a very easy going season for the farmers in Punjab as nothing else is going on. So it used to be also a meeting place for all the guys and kids during all these 3, 4 months. I remember my grand father and his two brothers and about 8 sons and another 20 grandsons participating in this activity.

Usually one kid will run after the bulls to move the veillna through a geared mechanical action and a long lever(gaaRhi) pulled by a pair of bulls, another kid would push the sugarcanes into the veillna, another few would be pushing the dried sugarcane fibres to fuel the big chulla. That was usually one of our favourite assignments in those cold winters....to be pushing fuel into the chulla. It used to take about 2/3 hours to boil juice and make guRh, dry it and then make balls of it. 8 or 10 of us adults and kids would be present their all day working, joking and making fun of each other. Coming home aftr school, first thing we would do was throw our heavy school bags on the floor and run towards veillna.

Mornings would start with drinking rauH(sugarcane juice) by mixing it with freshly made lassi, some black pepper and salt.

During the busy season, sometimes this process will countinue 24 hours and people will work by taking turns. During nights, we used to light some laaltains(later light bulbs) and when younger kids will go home to sleep,and grandfathers were forcefully requested to go home and have some rest,our adult uncles and older cousins will start cracking their dirty jokes. During my late teenage years, this used to be favourite part to go their in the late night and listen to all these ``experienced`` guys impart their adult wisdom on the younger ones. Now that I look back most of that was their boasts of stuff they probably never did:-).

What amazes me looking back is that in those winter days we used to drink so much ice cold rauH and still survive. I remember one time I was 10-12 yr old and sick of fever for days and did not go to the Veillna. When third day I went their brother of my grabdfather, whom we used to called Nikka Bappu(waDDa being the other one, third one for some reason we did not call Bappu but Bhaoo, a Punjabi slang for brother/or anyone elder), asked me what is wrong with me. I told him I had bukhaar for 3 days. He gave me a very big gaali and got up and filled a big glass of cold rauH, offered it to me and challenged me ``drink this rauH. bukhaar bukhaar laiyee ay...this cold rauH will kill bhoots inside you. what is bukhaar in front of it?``. In fact after drinking it I was fine by evening. No wonder I never saw those old souls ever get sick.

Now things have changed so much in last 10/15 years. We have plenty of sugar mills almost every 30/40 miles. I observed during my last visit that my cousins are growimg lot of sugarcane and shipping it to Sugar Mills. They now have electric veillnas which they hardly use other than for making some rauH and guRh for home use.

Kids are not interested in hanging around their elder cousins and uncles for entertainment, they rather spend their time in front of the TVs. I was looking forward to spend the night at the veillna and impress them with my tales from my years spent in US but those majlis`s are long gone.

World is changing faster than we can observe.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Zeenat:

Before writing this response have already called home to find out if we have some gurrh....and yes....would be having a rare treat....doodh-patti with gurrh after supper...even though those grim professionals with whom I talk mostly when un-dressed keep reminding me to avoid anything remotely sweet .... but how can I?...with so many sweet friends around:)...share a Mahajirzadeh recipe?...add almonds to molten gurrh and let it solidify...ummm...

love

temporal