Rahul Goswami offers a big comment on a little Nibble, worth sharing more widely here:
Hullo, hullo? The Times of India has deigned to notice jowar? More significant in spades than the people it quotes is that this newspaper of upper middle class urban India is talking about what used to be stolid farmers’ fare. Yes, once in while when travelling through rural parts we ate the enormous ‘rotis’ made from jowar. Those, with some spicy mango pickle and a fresh-cut red onion and a dry cooked vegetable, was the staple lunchtime favourite, to be enjoyed in quiet contemplation under a neem or ‘jambul’ tree, while bold goats eyed your tiffin. Now, in the mall-lined main streets or urban Mumbai or Delhi, twee bakeries with cookie-cutter yuppies for clients display their ‘creations’ ‘enriched’ with jowar. Humble pickle? Robust allium cepa (the red onion)? Rural India? We don’t do rural, they say, and slide into their new BMWs, pleased with their new-organic-quaint discovery of jowar.