For most of us, the idea of Pongal, the celebration, and the celebratory dish, is this: it is one of the oldest harvest festivals of Southern India, especially of Tamil Nadu. The Chola Kings (Chakravarti Kulottunga Choladeva) and those who ruled the Vijayanagara Empire were known patrons of this festival and were instrumental in turning the agrarian ritual into a state festival by granting vast swathes of land to the temple for the celebration. Pongal, which coincides with Makar Sankranti, and Magh Bihu celebrated elsewhere in the country, marks the end of the winter solstice turning days longer. And the most remarkable (and widely recognised) feature of this three-day harvest festival is Pongal. Incidentally not a dish but a technique that has created two incredibly delicious variations called Ven Pongal, which is savoury, and the sweeter Chakarai Pongal. Traditionally, while the sweet pongal is reserved as an offering to the deities and distributed as prasadam, it is the savoury variant that truly kickstarts the festival as the most popular breakfast had on the first day of Pongal. In fact, a customary breakfast during Pongal (in temples and homes) would comprise a generous serving of the buttery smooth pongal scrumptiously spiced with fresh black pepper, cumin seeds and fried cashew nuts, lavished with a ladle of ghee, and served along with medu vada and coconut chutney.
Often referred to as soul food thanks to its nourishing quality, the uniqueness of Ven Pongal is not only in the way it is cooked but the composition as well. Unlike Khichdi, a dish it is said to resemble the most appearance-wise, Ven Pongal’s rice quantity is more than the dal, and has two different methods of cooking. While one school of thought prepares the pongal by boiling the rice and lentil first — an act that got Pongal (boiling over), the dish and festival, its name — and then adding the seasoning later as a tempering; there is another school where everything (including the spices and seasoning) are cooked together. While the debate on which one is the original style of making Ven Pongal or Huggi (which is the Kannada for pongal) has ensued unresolved, the difference in both styles has little to do with the taste but the appearance. The one-pot version has a darker hue than the other, which manages to retain its natural colours. Thankfully, when it comes to the sweeter version or the Chakarai Pongal, no such difference is there as it follows the original recipe of Khirsa to the letter and gets its taste and aroma from the clay pot it is cooked in, and sweetness from the jaggery and milk. What, however, is common among both variants are the ingredients. While the primary ingredients remain the newly harvested Ponni rice — which is a short grain, easy-to-digest, starchy variant — and moong dal, even the tastemakers used to flavour pongal are seasonal first. Be it the black pepper, jaggery, cashew nut (the only dry fruit that goes into both the sweet and savoury variant) and the coconut. The milk too, which is used to make the sweet pongal, comes from the cows and buffaloes that have been set to graze around free from the fieldwork. The brilliance of pongal is in this very hyper-local choice of ingredients paired with slow cooking, which, according to seasoned Chef Praveen Shetty, “is the benchmark of a delicious pongal.” In fact, the composition is what gives pongal its unforgettable, rather, addictive taste and that soul food quality as well. The fact that the familiarity of the ingredients used in making pongal is the reason why the dish appeals even to those who are tasting it for the first time, and by the next can accurately figure out what style of pongal they like and also the sense of comfort and satiation that makes pongal the culinary highlight of the festival — and today the most recognisable one too. Incidentally, says nutritional therapist Shaveta Bhassin, “there is more to pongal the dish than the mere sweet and savoury version we see today.” It is, she continues, “one of the finest examples of food that heals. Think of it, pongal, both sweet and savoury, are made with rice and moong dal. While both rice and moong dal are easy to digest, what adds to pongal’s charm is that the rice used is raw Ponni rice, which is easily one of the oldest varieties of rice known for its high calorie and fibre content. That combined with the fact that it has the right amount of starch, and a low glycemic index means that it digests easily and can keep you
satiated for a long time. As for the dal, while moong dal has the lowest uric acid content making it safe for everyone, the pairing with rice further reduces any form of antinutrients like oxalate and phytic acid present thus improving the absorption of minerals, especially calcium from the milk.” But what really makes pongal, the perfect antidote and celebratory meal, is the use of fat (ghee, cashew nuts and coconuts) and sugar (from jaggery and coconut) along with spices that help boost not just the energy levels, but also calm the nerves, especially the mind, and bolster the digestive system against the changing weather pattern. This perhaps explains not only the status of Ven Pongal as the popular breakfast during the three-day celebration but also why pongal — sweet or savoury — is part of every meal had during the time including the alankara naivedya served in the temple. After all, says Chef Shetty, “here is a dish that brings together the goodness and bounty of health — just like the festival it represents.”