I am slowly discovering a certain pyromania within myself, this delicious desire to make things burn, and feeling rather fated to move in this direction seeing as I was, after all, born on a day when flames are lit [“there were lamps everywhere in the hospital in Digboi,” said my mother] and having been named, by parents who read the cues astutely and in real time, after the lamp that holds that flame: Deepavali, deepam, Deepa. It didn’t help to go down a wootz steel making rabbit hole with Vishal Katariya, about which more in a subsequent post which should have been the one prior to this one the way it happened—but, hey, this is a story that’s going to get told sideways.
So: Pyromania episode 3, on Pirandai uppu, comes first though burning cotton soaked in herb juices for kajal/kan-mai came first, and scorching paddy husk for cleaning powders came even before that. But it wasn’t until I got to thinking about the use of specific plant material in the crucibles used to make wootz steel ingots in ancient India [which was the steel source for the famously sharp and beautiful Damascus swords] that I became alert to what exactly burning leaves behind or produces in its wake, because it would seem that in the high temperatures needed for metallurgy, that would be almost nothing at all.
But it’s not, and like those elusive and ephemeral residues, questions of what gets burned off, what cannot burn or what gets left behind in ash lingered. Duh! Call it my Marie Curie moment: she and Pierre Curie thought an experiment had failed, when really in the residue was the prize they’d been seeking. In our common kitchens we’re not working with tonnes of ore (or radioactive elements, hopefully), but common burning is no less a process of chemical isolation and our everyday kitchens no less labs.
But what exactly is it we’re isolating?
क्षार, Khar, Alkaline Salts
The Axomiya burn the dried bhimkhol peels [Musa Bulbisina, a seeded banana native to the North East] to produce both washing powders and prized culinary kola-khar, or they burn dried water hyacinth [Eichhornia crassipes] to get dhokora khar or dried sesame plants, black lentil, and also bamboo to similar effect [my thanks to Kanak Hagjer of Blending Flavors for these last insights]. This khar is “soaked” in water creating a kind of lye; both the lye and the dishes in which this lye are used are called “khar.” Khar and its associated alkalinity give Axomiya food much of its distinctiveness—in taste, love, and identity [Datta 2021].
Further west, there is papad khar, which as I understand is the chemically standardized form of sajji khar which gives Bikaneri papads (papadums!) their rollability, their crispness, expansive qualities when fried in hot oil and their unique flavor. Sajji Khar is made from burning one of several plants: Seidlitzia stocksii, Arthrocnemum, Salsola, Haloxylon recurvum or Salicornia, all interestingly from the family Amaranthaceae.
“Khar” derives from the Sanskrit root क्षार and literally refers to alkaline salts, which are what all this burning of plant material leaves behind. Suspend the ash in water and what is soluble makes a variety of lye, which has culinary uses the world over: curing, tenderizing, giving breads a nice brown crust. In the case of kola-khar, “the main ingredient present in the water extract is potassium carbonate (K2CO3). This soluble metal carbonate is the main chemical ingredient for the alkalinity in kolakhar” (Anjumani Talukdar, quoted in Datta 2021). Other plant burnings may leave behind other metal salts; although synthetically produced, papad khar for example is mainly Sodium Sesquicarbonate.
Lye is caustic (alkaline!) so used in controlled, small amounts as a food additive. Some say this is the “astringence” of the classic “6 tastes” or aru-suvai, though that point may be debatable. The ash is no less alkaline and used as cleaning agent in many traditional contexts—it’s what we used before we had petroleum-derived detergents—or discarded into drainpipes which it cleans as it goes down anyway.
The South Indian contribution to this world of alkaline salts is pirandai uppu: we we burn pirandai [Cissus quadrangularis] to make “uppu,” or salt. The ash is soaked and the water drained twice to purify the ash, as the salts we want are in the ash, not in this case the water or lye. Small peppercorn-sized quantities of this pirandai uppu mixed with milk/ghee/honey, are prescribed for gastritis, flatulence, menstrual cramping, bone-strengthening at menopause, and obesity.
Pirandai itself is added to the famous Kallidaikurichi applams (more papadums!) which I’ve seen being made since I was a girl because that’s my mum’s village—not as ash, but knowing now the use of ask in Bikaneri papad, I don’t see why not.
Making Pirandai Uppu
The process is itself quite simple: clean pirandai stems by just washing them (not the elaborate process of removing skin that’s necessary for human consumption), desiccate in the hot sun, and burn. I did this with one large bunch of pirandai, just to learn the process.
So, STEP 1: wash, dry out in the hot sun. This may take a few days to a week or more, depending on the heat of the sun and humidity levels.
STEP 2: Burn. I burned my pirandai in a large pan indoors, with the vent on and the windows open. It’s nothing more than a process of heating the dried stems until they start to first smoke, then burn as you see in the images.
Burn until the dried pirandai becomes not just char but ash–not black, but a distinct grey, and there is pretty much nothing left to actually burn any more.
STEP 3: Wash and rest. Next, there’s always a vigorous mixing of the ash in water in approximately a 1:8 proportion for some considerable time, even up to a half hour. The process feels almost like a “washing” of the ash, so I imagine smaller quantities can thus be “washed” for less time. Now allow this to sit for a day, until the ash settles at the bottom and any miniscule remnants of carbon float up to the top.
At the end of one day, slowly drain as much of the “clear” water from the top of the jar until you’re left with just wet ash. Refill the jar with clean water, mix vigorously again and leave the jar for another full day.
STEP 4: Dry out the ash. Here is where the recommendations start to diverge.
After the ash is settled, Option 1 is to store the remaining paste in a மண்சட்டி [clay pot] placed in the hot sun where the water can evaporate slowly though the pot’s porous walls. Option 2 is to allow the ash to settle, drain the water/lye, and use heat to remove all remaining moisture, or even sun-dry the residual paste. Clearly the draining gets rid of whatever elements are still water-soluble in the ash, whereas the clay pot-drying method keeps it all. I’m not clear on which of these processes is the better, from a chemical standpoint, and might update this post as and when I gain more precise information.
What I can tell you is that the pot and method used for this final step will certainly have a bearing on the final product. The clay pot may add less of itself to the final pirandai uppu, but any metallic pot+heat used will give of itself rather more than you can control, stripping some part of a layer of metal which then of course becomes part of the salt itself. The container is not benign. Use a new clay pot or plate from some known source if possible for the final drying and be extremely patient, or know that some even tiny part of the usually stable passive layer of stainless steel or the aluminum of your vessel or the iron will have made it into the pirandai uppu. Some experts don’t specify the material of the pot used in this final step but appear to use common stainless steel, so I did, too. But the clay pot method feels preferable, all around.
STEP 5: Mix with ghee
At any rate, once you have a sambal-like fine ash, it’s ready to use, but if you see the section on dosage below, it’s hard to know just how much “4 அரிசி எடை/arisi edai” really is in easily measurable form. I suggest mixing the uppu with a small amoung of pure desi ghee. This helps a lot with daily dosage/ knowing how much to consume. Use barely enough ghee to make a paste with the ash and then roll into tiny balls, which can be eyeballed to equal “4 rice grains” in volume and rough weight. If rolling such tiny balls is hard, then roll larger ones and pinch off tinier amounts, or split small balls [that are about the size of what is shown in the images] into two when you’re ready to consume them. This makes a sort of “choornam” that’s relatively easy to suck on and swallow.
These golis also store quite well at room temperature, or you can refrigerate them pretty much indefinitely.
If you don’t wish to mix with ghee for whatever reason, then you can simply store and use the ash directly–but it’s a little less easy to eat pirandai uppu directly than to mix with ghee/honey/milk, which are the recommended methods of consumption.
Pirandai Uppu Uses and Doses
Here is a list of typical uses of pirandai uppu, which overlap substantially with the benefits of consuming fresh-cooked pirandai:
- Weightloss, in general
- To increase bone mineral density & strengthen bones
- Treatment of joint pains
- To aid in digestion or cure indigestion (flatulence, dyspepsia etc.); pirandai is a potent digestive stimulant
- Treatment of diarrhea
- To help reduce menstrual pains and related problems
- Treatment of piles
- For its effects on heart related issues
I have seen dosages generally written from as small as 3-4 அரிசி எடை/arisi edai [the weight of 4 grains of rice, equivalent to 1 grain of whole wheat] to 100mg, which is certainly much more. Obviously if you are wanting to take pirandai uppu to address some specific or chronic ailment, you must speak to a siddha or ayurvedic practitioner first. For myself, I use the 4 arisi edai measure to roughly make little golis or balls with ghee–which turn out almost the size of the creeper’s own grape-like berries–and take them in the mornings on an empty stomach when I can remember to do so, which is about 3-4 times a week. I find it very helpful in settling what have become for me fairly “normal” digestive ups-and-downs and preventing what used to be very troublesome indigestion and flatulence as I approach menopause. But that’s for me–for you, please speak to a qualified practitioner before self-medicating.
I’ve also seen it written that 100g of ashtachurnam+20g of pirandai uppu consumed as directed for the regular ashtachurnam usage (which should be written on the label of any good ashtachurnam bottle) can help settle a good many gastro-intestinal upsets. I’ve not done this myself, but it makes complete sense to me to try.
Commercially available pirandai uppu
Note that there is no table salt in pirandai uppu—this is an alkaline salt. Some commercially available brands are, however, distinctly salty, indicating that table salt (NaCl) has been added, probably to the prepared ash. Nothing wrong in that I suppose; it makes it even easier to consume. But what you’re buying then is likely the (weight of) salt and not the actual ash itself, which will be a miniscule part anyway of what you get from burning even large quantities of pirandai. [For a sense of proportion, I got a scant 2 tablespoons of pirandai uppu from burning 1 large bunch of pirandai.]
Note also that “pirandai uppu” can refer to (1) pirandai ash+salt (2) pirandai powder+salt or (3) sometimes just to pirandai powder (which is dried and powdered, not burned). These variations and associated unpredictability are also what prompted me to try to make this for myself, and not buy from any commercial producer.
Sources
Dutta, Puspanjalee Das. 2021. “Khar: A Cornerstone of Assamese Cooking.” Goya Journal, September 07
Very nice