Today tea time seems to be either a long forgotten luxury or a quick sip of something scalding to get you going through the rest of the day.
In my grandmother's home in Kerala, however, tea time is a languid, happy part of every day. It is when the men folk are back from town, the women including my mom and aunts are done with most of the day's chores and us city kids home for the summer holidays, were tired out after a day spent running loose.
We would arrive panting, an internal alarm having magically alerted us while climbing trees, splashing in the river, feeding and petting my grandmother's collection of critters including a flock of white geese that followed her around everywhere, and three cows, or while simply flopping down with our books, reading away the summer holidays.
Everyone would gather at the kitchen table, including very often neighbours and aunts who lived closeby, always unannounced, walking in through the kitchen door that was always open, sometimes with a freshly baked pound cake or some other palaharam (Malayalam for sweet snacks) to share. How I miss those cozy, informal tea times in today's hurried days!
There would be boxes of laddoos or jaelabis that the uncles brought home from town, cookies or tea cakes or warm pazham pori (banana fritters).
We kids were allowed into the dark store-moori ( room) to choose among the treasures within and bring out tins of typicak Kerala snacks like banana chips, sharkaravartty ( jaggery coated crunchy fried bananas), crisp kozhalappams, achappapams ( made with rosette moulds) , uniappam and other goodies that my grandmother, mom, aunts and the cheduthi's painstakingly made together sharing stories, along with the various tasks involved with the cooking.
My eyes would light up when I spotted the glass jar containing these smooth brown rounds.
But there was a catch. They could either be the dreaded avalose undas ( which I hated as a child) or these cashew andi undas which I loved. They both looked quite similar to me so every time I picked one up I would wiiisssshhh so hard before taking a bite, that it was an andi unda and not avalose unda! Of course today now that they are both much harder to come by, I would happily eat either!
The flavour of andi unda of roasted cashews, jaggery and roasted rice is truly wonderful. It is a simple snack involving only 4 ingredients. Some people add spices like cardamom and cumin, however my Amma doesn't since she feels that they may take away from the wonderful flavor of the roasted rice and cashews. Here is her recipe, more of a rough guide since she doesn't measure anything mostly going on colour, smell and taste as do all grandmothers in India! So if it doesn't taste sweet enough for you, simply add more powdered jaggery, if its too dry, add more coconut. Taste away and adjust as necessary.
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