A few years ago, I asked if she could make keppa-dosai (கேப்பை தோசை). Mother's reply was not what I expected. She said that it was not easy as it was when we were young to get the needed keppai. And the couple of times she tried, apparently it did not pass her quality standards.
It has been a long, long time--decades actually--since I had keppa-dosai. Some day, when I am old, maybe I will have a moment like in Ratatouille!
It is millet that I am talking about. Yep, millet. As kids, my brother and I loved drinking Ragimalt, which was an industrial millet concoction that was a much better alternative to Bournvita. My grandmother thought it was hilarious that we were so much into what she referred to as keppai-kanji (கேப்பை கஞ்சி).
That millet was in India long before the "English vegetables" arrived. Long before the polished white rice. Long before granulated white sugar.
In the process of rapidly modernizing, we are also rapidly losing our agrobiodiversity; it is declining in many countries:
Generally, agrobiodiversity is significantly lower in wealthy nations, where the industrial food system pushes toward genetic uniformity.The wealthier we get, the more we gravitate towards inexpensive sources of calories, continuing along the direction in which we started moving ever since we invented agriculture.
Global shifts of urbanization, migration, markets and climate can potentially be compatible with agrobiodiversity, but other powerful forces are undermining it. The imperatives of producing food at lower cost and higher yield clash with efforts to raise high-quality food and protect the environment. The future of agrobiodiversity hangs in the balance.It hangs in the balance, for certain.
