The art of the vadam

Tradition can mean so many things to different people. For kids, it is about the reward at the end, for the rebellious teen it is an annoyance that won’t go away, and for adults, it is a reason to remember that which they didn’t cherish when they had it.

And then there are those traditions that are loved, cherished, annoying and satisfying all at once!

For me, that tradition is my family’s annual summer ritual to make vadams or fryums – sun dried squiggles made of rice flour.

Every summer, we extract large plastic sheets from whichever godforsaken corner they were banished to, and prepare our game faces.

Here’s how we go about things:

1. We grind rice grains till you can’t tell them apart.
2. One person must catch ahold of another to stand beside the first through the whole time they prep – because suffering must happen in twos.
3. Sago/Javvarisi/Saboodhana is soaked overnight.
4. Person 1 brings water to a boil.
5. They must then savagely drown javvarisi.
6. Once the beads become COMPLETELY transparent, Person 2 starts pouring the rice flour in.
7. This is where two people come in ‘hand’-y. Because one has to keep stirring while the other incorporates the rice flour into the mixture.
8. Once done, it is topped off with chili, salt and lime juice.

It only takes about a couple of hours to make.

Thankfully it only takes two people to prep the flour, so we leave the early waking and long prepping to my mother and grandmother. Once they’ve toiled away in the kitchen till sunrise, they emerge to rest under the fan out in the hall. And that’s when the rest of us take our cue to grab plastic sheets, water, the presses, and the steaming trays of vadam koozhu, and trudge upstairs to the terrace.

We lay down the sheets, careful to place weights on the edges, take our customary positions beside said sheets, and squeeze away to great glory.

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For me, the best part about all of this is that it feels like the only quality time I get to spend with my family anymore. Whether it’s arguing over who gets the easiest press, or whose turn it is to eat some straight up koozhu, we have the most exciting time in the two hours we spend on a random Saturday morning under the unforgiving Sun.

And of course, there’s no point of going through all this trouble if you don’t gobble half the vadams before they are even fully dry – leading to another bout of whose turn it is to climb up 3 flights of stairs and fill a cup with as many perfectly, semi-dried ones as possible.

Let me tell you this, it is such a pain when it is my turn to go. I mumble and grumble all the way up. But at the end of the day, I can eat as many as I want up there and no one will ever know!

I don’t have pictures of them once completely dry and fried. But they are the fluffiest, yummiest in the whole world.

Anyway, that brings us to the end of a tear-jerking episode about family, love and tradition. If there is one thing I will always strive to do, it’s make some vadams every summer.

TTFN! Ta Ta For Now!