wheat flour over the years...

My mother's grandmother used to get up every morning at 4 (in Almora thats quite something) and grind the wheat for making food that day. The wheat flour used to be absolutely fresh and apparently also very tasty and healthy.

By the time ma was old enough to help her dadi, there were neighborhood chakkis for making atta - people still used to give their own flour and get the atta made right in front of them. Soon rush increased and people would just drop their dabbas with wheat grains and collect the atta later on. This is was still not convenient enough, so obviously the next was packaged atta sold in almost all kiran stores now.

However, the practice of getting your own grains has also not died out completely. Many families don't prefer packaged atta, fearing it might be old and maybe even with additives to make it last much longer on the shelves. But, packaged atta is getting more and more popular. We can already see the next step in the process - packaged chapatis, though the trend is yet to catch on. The roti quality is rather inferior, and most of us still prefer to eat fresh rotis straight from their mother's/ wife's tawa!

Another interesting product for this is the 'ghar-ghanti' which has been around in many Gujarati homes for a while now. Useful when the atta consumption is fairly high, true for large joint families.

I wonder for how long we would be able to retain our current cooking practices, with technology we move ahead for sue, but often compromise on the most fundamental parameters i.e. taste. Often convenience wins over taste and that is quite a loss for our taste buds. Lets see how our future shapes up...