How a Soup Made from Cattle Feed Went from Poor Man’s Food to Delicacy
Text and photos by Kavitha Yarlagadda
After the horse gram is separated out for feed, the liquid would simmer until the consistency turned thick, and then it would be tempered with ghee, cumin, mustard seeds, tamarind pulp, curry leaves, pepper, salt and onions with a dash of cream or butter.
The festive air was palpable, the house was decked up with flowers and tender mango leaves, which were considered auspicious for happy occasions. The women and young girls were decked up, too, in colorful clothes and jewelry. While the kitchen was humming with activity, a big pot of soup was simmering on the stove, and the air was filled with heavenly aromas of spices.
In the pot is an authentic and delicious soup, ulavacharu. Any family gathering and happy occasion in an Andhra home, especially in these areas is incomplete without it. Ulava means horse gram, and charu means soup in the Telugu language.
Krishna and Guntur districts in Andhra Pradesh are major sources of food production with ample water resources. The people from these areas own large parcels of agricultural land, which was their primary source of income, and farming was their main profession. They also own buffaloes and cows, and horse gram was widely cultivated as feed for the cattle. This lesser-known bean was used as cattle feed in most parts of India; it gets its name as it was fed to race horses before races, because of its high protein. The natives of these two districts continue to be landlords and practice agriculture and horse gram is even today used as cattle feed, though the younger generation is taking up education and moving away for greener pastures. The soup that we natives of a few South Indian districts in Andhra Pradesh make with it is less well known.
This lentil soup is a popular and staple dish in the homes of many natives of these areas. In the 1950s through the ’80s, it was prepared in a slow-cooking method. Earthen pots filled with lentils and water were placed in a trench dug in the ground and placed on bricks with a slow flame and covered with dry grass, ash and other waste material. The pots would be covered with lids to ensure that the lentils boiled and simmered with the heat evenly spreading from top to bottom by placing the required combustible waste material around the pots. The pots were left to simmer for 12 hours and then the water was separated and the residual lentils would become feed for the cattle. The water would further be boiled and allowed to simmer until the consistency turned thick, and then it would be tempered with ghee, cumin, mustard seeds, tamarind pulp, curry leaves, pepper, salt and onions with a dash of cream or butter. It’s best eaten with rice.
My 75-year-old mother, Dhanalakshmi, is nostalgic remembering her childhood at her home in Akunuru.
“We would just gorge on the food forgetting about the huge quantities of rice we would consume.” Reminiscing the happy times spent with her siblings when their staple diet consisted of legumes and lentils stew, rice, ulavacharu and mango pickle.
Mandava Venkatratnam, a farmer from Gunadala in Krishna district, after watching his father struggle with this laborious process of slow cooking ulavacharu, experimented and tried to build a robust machine to ease the process and after numerous attempts he was successful in mechanizing the process by building the “Jacketed Boiler Vessels.” He even got a patent for this.
“I used to dream about this day in and out and my family thought I was mad to do this,” says Mandava. He is a successful farmer and is involved in the manufacturing and widespread distribution of ulavacharu for 20 years in Andhra Pradesh, the neighboring states and even in the United States.
Unlike Mandava, more recently most of them in Andhra Pradesh have taken to cooking lentils in a pressure cooker for a longer time and then simmering them on a gas stove, before tempering.
This authentic delicacy is particular and native to most of the farming families in the coastal belt of Andhra Pradesh. I for one have fond memories of spending my summer vacations at my mother’s village and returning back to Hyderabad with a packed bottle of the soup lovingly tucked into our luggage prepared by my maternal aunt in the old fashioned way of cooking. Since then I used to eagerly wait for the summer vacations just to get my hands on some delicious ulavacharu.
At Spicy Venue restaurant, ulavacharu chicken biryani combines two popular regional dishes.
As time flew by, many farmers migrated to Hyderabad for the education of their children (we are second-generation migrators from Andhra, where my grandparents were farmers) and for better prospects. A few of them ended up starting hotels and catering businesses to cater to the huge population of migrants from the coastal regions settled in Hyderabad. Because of this, the delicacy is now available for sale at many shops, restaurants and hotels.
Ravi is one such person who started a catering business in Hyderabad. “Caterers are in much demand during auspicious seasons which are ideal for celebrating weddings and other happy occasions, people come to us for the native dishes we prepare.”
Spicy Venue is one such popular restaurant, which has been operating since 2000 in Hyderabad, this restaurant draws huge crowds for its native dishes and experimenting with recipes.
“Our restaurant is popular for its native coastal dishes, and our ulavacharu chicken biryani is one such popular dish, which is an outcome of experimenting with recipes, which is a combination of ulavacharu and chicken biryani,” says Sampath Tummala, the owner of Spicy Venue restaurant.
Ulavacharu has come a long way in once being considered a poor man’s food to now being a delicacy. The benefits of this legume are such that it is slowly gaining popularity as a healthy food and being consumed worldwide in the form of sprouts, as a health drink using horse gram powder and as traditional dishes in India like soups and dals. Whatever the form, my fascination for this traditional soup ulavacharu will always keep me asking for more.
