Koṉṟaipoo Chammanthi

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Konnapoo, கொன்றை/koṉṟai, the Indian laburnum, amaltas, the golden shower tree, Cassia Fistula—“imagination” as we know it locally—blazes when the sun is at its hottest.

Koṉṟai, whose blossoms tell not so much of the searing season of their flowering but of rainclouds yet to come once the koṉṟai’s blooming is done—not just a benign statement about the weather bound-to-change, but on the certainty of Viṣṇu’s return, for which the flowers wait, steadfastly but heavily, drooping down to the ground from a leafy canopy of a thousand eyes, “alive and a witness” to the unbearable suffering of the woman who awaits her beloved [in Nammālvār’s Tiruviruttam, as interpreted by Piḷḷai in Vencatesan 2014].

Koṉṟai, which adorns the head of a resplendent Śiva and spills its abundant glittering pollen there: “Are there any people who do not talk praising your goodness as the master on whose head the konrai with its abundant pollen, glitters?” [in Sambandar’s Thiruvoaththoor 1.054].

Koṉṟai, which is the flower and the tree and “Him who shines as trees”: नमो॑ वृ॒क्षेभ्यो॒ हरि॑केशेभ्यः पशू॒नां पत॑ये॒ नमो॒ नम॑: / namō̍ vṛ̠kṣēbhyō̠ hari̍kēśēbhyaḥ paśū̠nāṃ pata̍yē̠ namō̠ nama̍ḥ, says the Śrī rudram namakam a Vedic prayer from the Kṛṣṇa yajurvēdīya taittirīya saṃhitā, “Salutations and salutations,/  To Him who shines as trees,/ To him who has green leaves as hair, / And to Him who is the Lord of all beings” [द्वितीय अनुवाक/2nd anuvakam, 2.1.2]. 

So vivid and so abundant is the imagery of the koṉṟai in both Tamil Śaiva, Vaiṣṇava and other poetic texts that describe our seeking and searching of interior landscapes, it is almost difficult to treat this flower as anything other than divine ornament, adornment, auspicious sign and symbol of “Vishukani” or the first things one beholds in the Tamil-Malayalam mid-April new year.

But—perhaps a little like getting a precious taste of a distributed temple prasadam which the Great One has touched or in which He has dwelt—one doesn’t say no to eating it either.

The petals are soft and melting and just so tenderly tart, quite unlike avaaram [Tanner’s Cassia/Cassia Auriculata] which is somewhat the same yellow but fading to a pastel yellow-green; dry and rather without much taste of its own, but with which this amaltas is often confused. See the image below for a proper botanical comparison of the two flowers, and further down the elongated seed pods and their ladder-like internal construction that hold, on each rung, a single seed in a sticky-sweet base that so resembles tamarind, it gets the name “puḷi” in Tamil: sārakoṉṟai-puḷi.

But I digress. A thogaiyal or thuvaiyal is logical [rhyme intended!]. A little ginger, green chilli and black pepper, a little coconut and roasted chana dal—because a thuvaiyal isn’t one without either ingredient, and then the very lightly fried petals bring in all the sourness needed to pull it all together. The usual tempering in sesame oil.

The sort of thing that convinces you of the worth of being “gullible” like the “fat cassia trees” in the old Caṅkam poem, and of waiting patiently in the hottest phases of summer when koṉṟai most gloriously bursts into bloom, for all that is certain to come, even–especially–when it appears it might not.

“These fat cassia trees
are gullible:
the season of the rains
that he spoke of
when he went through the stones
of the desert
is not yet here

though these trees
mistaking the untimely rains
have put out
their long arrangements of flowers
on the twigs

as if for a proper monsoon.”
–Kōvattan (Kuruntokai 66, trans. A.K. Ramanujan, in Interior Landscape, p. 44),

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Koṉṟaipoo Chammanthi: the Recipe

For the Chammanthi:

• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon bengal gram/chana dal
• 1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 medium-hot green chilli
• 1 small piece fresh ginger
• 1 large handful of cleaned konnapoo petals
• 1/2 cup of freshly grated coconut

To temper:

• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon urad dal
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
• a pinch of hing/asafoetida
• 1 sprig fresh curry leaves

1. Clean the flowers by pulling off their reproductive parts and rinsing in clear, cool water.

2. Heat a teaspoon of oil, and roast 1 tablespoon of bengal gram/chana dal until it is turning golden to match the yellow of the konrai petals and fragrant

3. Add 1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns and roast these a scant minute longer. Transfer the dal and the black peppercorns to the jar of a mixie/blender and allow to cool. Pulse a few times to powder coarsely. Leave this in the jar–the remaining ingredients get added on top and pulsed again in the next steps.

4. Meanwhile, add 1 chopped green chilli and a small piece of fresh ginger to the same pan in which you roasted the dal and pepper, and allow these to sear. Add a few extra drops of oil if you need to.

5. Follow with the konrai petals, heating through until they are just barely wilted.

6. Quickly follow with a handful (about 1/2 cup) of freshly grated coconut and mix until warmed. [Note: Use only the freshest coconut for this recipe. Dry/old coconut needing to be toasted before use will change the taste unforgivably.]

7. Transfer the chili-ginger-petal-coconut mixture to the waiting mixie jar. Add salt to taste and pulse until combined. Add a few drops of water if necessary, but just enough to allow the pulsing to continue until you have a relatively uniform admixture. Transfer to a serving dish.

8. Tempering: In the same pan, heat another tablespoon of sesame oil and when it’s hot add 1 teaspoon urad dal, 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds, 1 dry red chilli (broken), a pinch of hing/asafoetida–when the spices crackle and pop–follow with curry leaves. Fry until crisp and pour this into the waiting chammanthi. Mix immediately to capture all the tempering flavors in the chammanthi.

Sources consulted:

• Ramanujan, A.K., trans. 1967. The Interior Landscape: Classical Tamil Love Poems. New York Review of Books
• Nammālvār/Vencatesan, Archana, trans. 2014. A Hundred Measures of Time/ Tiruviruttam. Penguin Inda.