Brahmi Brittle & Indian Parenting

What if I were to tell you that a candy can contain a worldview?

You’d think me crazy, but I’d stick with that perspective because I have an example, and it’s this candy which I knew as a child as vallarai mittai.

Vallarai or vallarai keerai is brahmi, Centella asiatica, gotu kola [in Chinese] or Indian pennywort [not to be confused with Bacopa monnieri, water hyssop, also known as brahmi]. Brahmi is among our oldest known medicinal herbs, listed in the Sushruta Samhita and referred to as the “herb of longevity.” This diminutive little herbaceous creeper which loves the moist and the cool but really will hardily tolerate drier conditions once established boasts an impressive list of uses, from wound healing to treating varicose veins, skin conditions, depressions and anxieties, and blood purification. But arguably its most common daily household use is to aid in boosting cognitive function and improving ஞாபக சக்தி/nyabaga shakti or memory power. This, more than any of its other virtues, is the prime reason why vallarai is sold in markets, included in diets, and perforce given to growing children.

Which brings me to the candy, because what better way to convince a child to eat something bitter and kinda funny tasting than to make a mittai out of it? Sugar is persuasive, that’s tactic #1, and an argument that plays out in every bottle of gummy bear vitamins you ever saw.

My boys loved those gummy bear vitamins but I don’t remember liking vallarai mittai much as a child. The herb has a light scent of its own that transfers onto the tongue as bitterness. The mittais made with it (flavored with dry ginger and cardamom) were sweet-and-bitter and not sour at all and I loved sour most of all. Plus it felt like a pill and looked it, too. Sugar and sweetness were being marshalled to coax picky eaters, but in unintegrated fashion and with an aesthetic that was just too dark-green for my rather-too-self-assured sense of self. The mittais weren’t for me, even when they came in peanut brittle form as kadalai mittai.

Speed ahead all these decades and I’ve embraced bitters in all forms, even if sour-spice are still my mediating tastes of choice. I love brahmi now, most especially in thambuli form (ground with coconut and green chillies, mixed with yogurt and tempered; image is below) but also just juiced (with lemon juice and a little honey). And, having become the parent my parents once were, in the interests of getting a daily dose of brahmi into the diets of my far-more-compliant-than-I-ever-was growing boys, I decided to revisit the candy–but as a variant on the kadalai mittai idea, as a straightforward no-nut, no-nonsense brittle.

You could say that this method of coaxing the consumption of brahmi is nothing but the old “spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down”–so yes it’s a worldview, but quite a universal one. But brahmi is not a medicine, and is not being treated as a medicine in this form. It’s given to improve brain function and, at best, to fortify. It’s given for general health, not for the treatment of anything. And it’s given in miniscule doses, but daily, over long periods of time. It’s food, even in candied form, not medicine, not a “supplement.”

In this, vallarai mittai is also very much like the Sourashtra community’s Pankarapaan beiri, made with a trio of quite yummy (but admittedly strong-tasting) greens. Deep fry and put chutney podi on top, and they’re a healthy snack. Who’s thinking of the greens any more? So, tactic #2: disguise and distract.

[Plus don’t demonize the deep frying, draw attention instead to overconsumption and the over/repeated use of dubious fats!]

That tells you, too, of a go-to-market strategy. We have been places where brahmi grows wild–and is completely ignored as a source of food, nutrition or therapy because guests prefer their fried meats and carted-from-the-plains masala curries. Unforgivable! Juice it, grind it into chutney or mix it into a thambuli–and if nothing else works, make that brittle.

There’s approach to parenting embedded here, too. In the early years of my older son’s life, I took him once to a weekend research meeting at the Chinmaya Mission in Houston. Suddenly nervous in the company of so many adults and strangers, he grew terribly troublesome, and no talking was helping me out. The Chinmaya Mission Acharya, in one breath instructing me on the reasons why they as an organization would not want to take part in the HapMap genomic research study we were running at the time, in the other turned my explain-first-reward-later parenting method on its head. He stood up, found a candy, and with one unforgettably avuncular smile, offered it to my son. That was it. The kid was pacified with a “chocolate,” as candies are universally known in Indian parlance.

I would remember that incident and the simplicity of the Acharya’s solution against all my young-motherly angst many times after we made our own move back to India in 2008. “Chocolates” were a fact of life as they are anywhere, but also very strategically used to please, pacify and win over little children all the time–much to my chagrin. But they were the province of the grandparents and the aunts and uncles, not parents at all. I had no say! Or not much anyway. It takes a village? Well, with the village come all manner of methods, and all manner of chocolates.

When parents did pull out the candies, it was usually with some much more veiled ulterior motive, like “eat your brahmi.” So, tactic #3: get it in first, explain later. Do what it takes to get that culinary compliance. Pacify first, then get it in, then explain if you must. Make it a habit that will become, in later life, a nostalgic craving.

Vallarai mittais are eaten in the early morning with breakfast, before school, to boost that all-critical brain function. A candy with breakfast! All in the tiniest quantities, but over lifetimes, and alongside every other spice and leaf and nut we routinely consume, in every tempering and every masala podi. And if all that takes some ghee, or some tamarind or some jaggery, then it takes some ghee or some tamarind or some jaggery.

Think of it, it’s not just “chocolates.” Daily feeding routines in India become storytelling sessions and garden romps because of this logic of doing what it takes. The idea of leaving a child in a high chair to navigate his own lunch is unthinkable–because children don’t know a thing about what they need or what’s good for them. They’ll eat around the brahmi. They’ll leave the brahmi behind. Independence at this age is overrated. Explanations won’t work; the path to the stomach is not via the brain–it’s via the tongue! So, some sugar, a good disguise and/or a glibly distracting story almost certainly will do the trick. All the “ahaaa!” moments and even the true relish, all these things will come–but later.

That’s love, Indian-style, and an idea of good parenting and the reason why we have such things as vallarai mittai in our worlds. Is there compulsion in this approach also? Sure, there is. But whoever said that love in this subcontinent, or anywhere really, is (or should be) free of compulsion? Think of the times each aunt you ever went to visit said: eat-eat-eat more! Why are you not eating enough? At least have one glass of juice! And how those very, incredibly annoying efforts are also acts of generosity, hospitality, and that associated, even affected, affection. So that’s tactic #4 then, which is an extension to #3 but a tricky one to keep in the right proportions: there’s no harm in some compulsion.

In this sense, there’s a direct correspondence between every extra samosa you ever pressed on an unwilling guest, every pirandai-sadam mouthful you ever coaxed your young’un to consume and every piece of vallarai mittai–or brahmi brittle. It’s not just the proverbial spoon-full-of-sugar. It’s an embrace of bitterness and good health through acts of love.

You’ve been this mother. You know you have. Child on hip or wriggling down, you’re helpless with a plate of food that that unruly thing is refusing—because, frankly, there are more important things to do than eat. Butterflies to chase, a brother, a road to cross (heavens!), something in the grass that must be investigated. Just anything but eat. And you’re thinking: this child!! And: what will happen? And—what do you call a group of anxieties? A brood perhaps? Well, the brood crowds in and you, out of desperation, commence to coax, cajole, convince. It’s so yummy! You love this! Or the bargain: just onnnne mouthful and then a spoon of curd, okay? A piece of banana? A piece of that nice-nice candy? But really in this game, distraction is your best friend: rice deftly mixed with pappu/dal or some other wholesome something, pop, in goes the mudda while all eyes are on that bird flying overhead. (It might not get eaten, but at least the One has squirrel cheeks now, it’s in there). You tell stories, establish kin relations of love and obligation: just one mouthful for me, one more for your grandmother. Eating becomes a kind of seva! Amma mudda, Nanna mudda, kaaki mudda—even the crow! It takes hours, and love and patience and gardens and balconies, but it gets done.

And on it goes until some child psychologist writes a book on self-feeding or you decide that this is force-feeding. They’ll eat when they’re hungry. They know what they want. (Yeah, sugar!) They know what’s good for them. (Ummm, sugar?) Children of the universe though they all are, sustained by eternal running life-forces you and I cannot see—they get tired and they get cranky. (And then you get tired and you get cranky). You’ve to convince them of the butteriness of the avocado or the yumminess of kootu-saadam. They know when they’re full, but they don’t always know the goodness of the world until you show it to them–and sometimes, as with brahmi, you have to feed it first and explain it later. So, slowly this time and gently like a grandmother because you have tired bones and you’re less cranky now and you get it at last: Amma mudda, Nanna mudda, Vasu mudda, Ram-bhai mudda…

Last mouthful goes in: yay, all done! And now would you like a piece of vallarai mittai?

Brahmi Brittle

A herbal brittle if there ever was one, made with brahmi leaves, this is a twist on the traditional vallarai mittai, which is fed to children (and adults) to help boost cognitive function and memory power!

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Ingredients

  

• 1 large handful of brahmi leaves, stalks removed
• 1 teaspoon ghee or sesame oil
• ½ teaspoon ginger powder
• 2-3 cardamom pods, seeds removed and powdered
• ¼ cup powdered jaggery or naattu chakkarai
• ¼ cup sesame seeds, optional
• 1½ cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• A few brahmi leaves to decorate, optional

Instructions

 

• Wash the brahmi leaves, and pat dry. Leave these under a fan or near an open window to air dry further.
• In a skillet, heat the oil or ghee until almost smoking and drop in the leaves. Reduce the flame. Fry until the brahmi leaves are crisping, the leaves crumble to the touch, and all traces of moisture are gone.
• Transfer to a blender jar, along with the powdered jaggery or naattu chakkarai. Add the ginger and cardamom powders. Pulse until you have a uniformly crumbly “brahmi sugar.” Transfer to a bowl and allow to cool completely.
• If you are using the sesame seeds, toast them lightly and then add them to the brahmi sugar. Set aside.
• On a large plate or cookie tray, spread some parchment paper and grease this with ghee. Set aside.
• In a clean, heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar and the 2T water. Mix until the water is incorporated.
• Now set this on a medium flame and allow it to cook undisturbed. You do not need to brush down the sides. Just leave it be. As it bubbles, it may look like there are clumps of sugar on top that are never going to melt, but give them some time, and they’ll come together.
• When the sugar mixture starts to turn amber, the sugar bits on top should have started to dissolve. Keep a close watch as this goes from amber to burned very fast.
• When the mixture turns a dark brown (about 300°F on a candy thermometer), work quickly – add the brahmi sugar mixture and mix vigorously with a wooden spoon. Now lift the pan off the flame and pour the molten liquid onto the waiting parchment-lined cookie tray/plate and tilt it this way and that to allow it to flow and spread into a thin, uniform sheet.
• You can if you like press a few brahmi leaves onto the surface, but this is purely decorative.
• Allow this to cool for about 15-20 minutes until the sheet is very hard. Use a mallet to knock it and break into pieces.
• Store in an airtight jar (or refrigerate if your climate is very humid like mine—and eat straight out of the fridge or the candy will attract moisture and become messily wet if left out). You can break little pieces onto vanilla ice creams, too, for a nice candy crunch.
• Brahmi brittle made this way should keep indefinitely unless the humidity gets to it.