Of sirukan peelai & knotgrass rice beer

Where does one begin to speak of the wealth of local knowledge about common weeds and local ingredients–and all its creative deployments?

Most communities in India have historically drawn boundaries around themselves, both knowingly and unselfconsciously, by way of food. “We eat this” and “we do it this way” and “we also make {insert the dish of your choice here}” — these are markers of identification and inclusion, while “we don’t eat such things” or “they do it that way but we don’t” is the equally common marker of dis-association and exclusion. Growing up, I heard the latter asserted a lot with regard to non-vegetarian dishes; now living in Auroville, I hear it equally about less-valued greens (like panna keerai, or kuppai keerai, for example). So, depending on where any of us stands vis-a-vis these many boundaries, you either see the value of things growing around, or you don’t.

I started paying attention to sirukan peelai, knotgrass, or Aerva lanata for two reasons. First, it was growing in abundance all around us and a Nepali woman worker at a construction site next door asked if she could collect some.

“For what do you use them?” I asked. “Yeh Nepali log isse daaru banate hain,” our Nepali watchman interjected. These Nepali people make a sort of alcohol with it.

“Oh?” I asked, turning back to the lady, whose name is Rupa, imagining some elaborate and illicit distillation process with just this one herb. “Kaisa? [how]?”

Through a somewhat convoluted conversation conducted in our mutually broken Hindi, I ascertained finally that this was the process: knotgrass plants were gathered whole and dried, then mixed with rice flour and fashioned into “rotis” which were then again dried so they could be stored for long periods.

Then some rice was cooked, 1-2 of these “rotis” crumbled into it, and the whole thing mashed and set aside for some days until it fermented.

“I’ll bring you some,” said Rupa and I gratefully handed her a container. “But I don’t drink it,” she added, carefully. “Only my husband does.” By the time she left, I had some vague notion of the process and of gender strictures around the consumption of country alcohols in a community already fairly decorous and protective of “its” women and children. I had no inkling at all how the world that was about to open up, via this one little weed.

“Iska naam kya hain?” I’d asked. “Phulni,” Rupa answered, after a barely discernable pause. Clearly this was a guess or surmise because “phulni” is Conyza bonariensis or hairy fleabane: a plant indeed, but not this plant and not seen much around here. I never got a chance to ask if phulni is what was used in her native regions in place of the local knotgrass, or how knotgrass had come to be identified as a suitable substitute.

Sirukan peelai as Tamil mooligai [medicinal herb]

Meantime, the knotgrass sat on my kitchen counter–a pleasant floral accompaniment. It took me a while to associate it with the “bouquets” I’d sometimes see hung or placed around the more traditional homes around, which we typically just associate with “dhrishti” or protective charms against evil eyes. This is the second reason I started paying attention to sirukan peelai, for this practice of kaappu kattudal, காப்பு கட்டுதல்—protective tyings, best as I can translate—and its symbolism is medicinal, far exceeding that of just the usual dhrishti protections.

Sirukan peelai (சிறுகண் பீளை) or just sirupeelai is of the family Amaranthaceae. This unassuming and somewhat oddly named little weed (the name refers to discharge from eyes) has a revered potency among Tamil mooligai [medicinal herbs] in addressing pittha vadam, or troubles of metabolism and digestion broadly, as well as kidney and urinary tract conditions. It is one of Kerala’s sacred “dasapushpam“: 10 medicinally and culturally significant flowers and herbs that are used in varieties of different ways. The available scientific literature documents these values in some detail. For example: this article records its uses as a vermifuge, for treating coughs and pneumatic conditions, in prolonged fevers, and more as far as Rajasthan; another source documents its use for a still wider range of conditions among tribal communities in Odisha and upwards towards Bangladesh. [Source 1: Manoj Goyal et. al., Aerva lanata: A review on phytochemistry and pharmacological aspects, Pharmacogn Rev. 2011 Jul-Dec; 5(10): 195–198. Source 2: Bitasta Mandal and Swati Madan, Aerva lanata: A Blessing of Mother Nature, Journal of Phar macog nosy and Phytoc he mistr y 2016; 5(1): 92-101]

More culturally interesting are the somewhat more decorative-symbolic local uses. Together with an assortment of other equally potent and revered flowers and herbs such as karuntulasi (Krishna tulasi or dark tulasi), neem, maavilai (mango leaves), thumbai (Leucas aspera), pirandai (the “adamant creeper,” Cissus quadrangularris), and aavaaram flowers (Senna Auriculata, Tanner’s cassia), sirukan peelai was always placed into in old roof thatchings and hung in bunches outside rural Tamil Nadu homes during Pongal time. This happened specifically on the first of the four festive days, bhogi, when all old things are discarded and burned and places readied with prayers and protective charms for the Sun’s transition in the heavens.

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Such extraordinary symbolism, isn’t it? To answer ills and ailments with the force of local herbs, imbricated in the thatch over our heads and hung from the rafters in all four directions—representing the force of Knowledge but also acting as talismans because goodness knows we need both knowhow and luck in this wild, uncertain world.

Colloquially the plant has many descriptive names. Some liken its flowers to classic nose-rings that Tamil women wear; then it is the mookutthi poo. To others its flowers are like early morning eye discharge; then it is Kannipovu or Kannipoolai or sirukan peelai. Perhaps knowing of its use in breaking down kidney stones, others note the resemblance between the flowers and the stones themselves. I couldn’t help but reflect on how matter-of-fact these names are, for such a respected herb with such wide-ranging properties. It’s like eye discharge, and that’s just what it is.

Recommendations for use are many:

• dry the whole plant, powder, and boil a spoon of the powder with water like a kashayam & have on empty stomach in the mornings.
• separate leaves and flowers & follow the method above, but boil roots separately and drink that mixed kashayam. [This may be because dried flowers and leaves will be a lot more easy to powder finely than the roots and stems]
• pound fresh roots, squeeze the juice, mix with a little milk and honey or naattu chakkarai (country sugar/jaggery) and consume weekly as a preventive for stones [Source]
• sirukan peelai + arugampul or durva grass + 5 peppercorns boiled in two measures of water and reduced to one to be consumed daily in the mornings and evenings every few days or so, for those facing or prone to developing kidney stones [Source1] [Source2]
• combine sirukan peelai and banana stems (also known to be beneficial for kidney health) and boil. Consume this in the mornings on an empty stomach every few days or so. [Source]
• For joint pains and swellings: Pound sirukan peelai with mudakathan keerai in equal proportions, fry in castor oil, and apply as a poultice to affected areas [Source]. Recommended for pregnant women who have swollen legs [Source2]
• among many others!

Sirukan peelai to make rice beer

As though to awaken me from this deep herbal reverie, Rupa returned with my dabba of fermenting “daru” and one of the “rotis” used to facilitate the process. Pointing to the dabba with a strange, white semi-solid alcohol-scented mass, “you’ve to strain the liquid and drink it,” she said, adding again: “but I don’t, only my husband does.”

This is when a light bulb came on in my head. Actually seeing these products, it was easier by far for me to understand her recipe and associate it with the “rice beers” that go possibly by as many names as sirukan peelai has, in so many different regions to the north-east: laopani or xaj pani in Assam, madhu in Bengal, chang in Tibet, apong in Siang/Arunachal Pradesh. This is a farmer’s “beer” made typically from freshly harvested barley, millets or rice, depending on what the region grows. When rice is used, Tibetan “chang” becomes drechang and everyone gets a taste, especially during Losar or Tibetan new year.

For the Ahom in Assam, it’s a matter of identity. Some hold that Ahom rice beer making practices are still closely allied with those of the Tai, suggesting that their folk memory and handed-down processes span some eight centuries, to the time of their arrival in the Brahmaputra valley–an astounding idea unto itself if also a dangerous one for those using these identities to advance secessionist claims [Source: Barend Jan Terwiel, “Laopani and Ahom Identity: An Ethnohistorical Exercise”, in: G. Wijeyewardene andE.C. Chapman (eds.), Patterns and Illusions: Thai History and Thought , Singapore: Instritute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992, pp. 127-166.]

Now the preparation of rice beer requires a starter, which comes in the form of a dry yeast cake, whose preparation is itself specialized, varied, and reflective of detailed botanical knowledge. Terwiel (in the source cited above, p. 137) records an Ahom process that used this astonishing array: “the sura lota creeper [Asclepias acida, possibly], garapsoi leaves, panimadhuri leaves, bihlongani sipa [root of polygonum, bukwheat family], madhoi-malati leaves [hiptage madablota], banjaluk [a wild pepper], bionisaputa leaves [Desmodium sequax], acharilota leaves [a wild creeper], and black pepper.” Other practices involve the use of jackfruit and guava, covering with banana leaves and so on. These are mixed with a local (usually non-glutinous) rice, left to dry and guarded from contaminations lest the rice beers they ferment will also sour. The resulting cake is surpitha or vekur pitha to the Ahom/Assamese, known as pab or chanzi to Tibetans, and by several other names to other communities who have evolved their own local brewing processes. [Also see this article]

Here in Pondicherry, home to fewer from the NE states but a sizeable Nepali diaspora, I’m not sure the starter yeast cake has a name, but I do know that the key herb used to make it is sirukan peelai: evidently rich in wild yeasts, it is “fed” with rice as a sugar source to keep the yeasts alive and it’s those that kickstart rapid fermentation when mixed with cooked rice. The specificities are gone with substitutions in diaspora, and any rice now appears acceptable, but Rupa’s “roti” was just this: a starter yeast cake. It wasn’t made specifically for Sankranti but was fitting nonetheless for these cakes are equally important offerings at Sankranti/ Magh Bihu/ harvest festivals in just about all regions of its origin.

Ingenious! And reflective of how diasporic communities both keep customs and transform them. Rice beer drinking is common enough in all the regions I’ve mentioned besides being ceremonial and customary and though some strict Vaishanava Hindus will disavow the practice, its consumption may not be restricted to men or even adults. Terwiel reports that men are certainly not involved in making the beers; women do this and in a strictly monitored process that’s quite reminiscent of pickling. Among Pondicherry’s Nepalis, many of whom are watchmen and construction workers, however, perhaps in the absence of more elaborate ceremonial use, these rice beers have become just “daru” [alcohol] with all ills associated.

The beer itself? An acquired taste. Perhaps, like Rupa, it’s that I’m no great drinker, or that I have no ceremonial occasions to consume it. I stored my batch long enough for the fermentation to “complete,” as it were, for the quantity of cooked rice added; the color changed, there was a sediment below, and what then smelled and tasted like a wine above to distill. Following that logic, I’ve used it in place of rice wine in stir fries ever since. It’s quite wonderful that way, too.