SARDI MAIN ZARDI
LT COL NOEL ELLIS
12/XII/2023
Egg in any form has been my all time favourite. All those who do not like eggs are excused from reading further. Eggetarians and non-vegetarians enjoy the journey of what came first…. The hen or the egg?
For me, both are welcome at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, including a mid-day snack or a snack with the evening chai. They could be in any form, poached, boiled, stuffed in momos, mixed with mayonnaise, curried, dry or fried, lutputta, spicy or with just pepper and salt. Korma, jhaal farezi, A la Foos, 69, drumsticks, lollipop or in a soup. I can leave my salad for them.
There is an old joke too. What is the ‘yellow’ of an egg called…. it is yolk, what is a white of an egg called…. No… not folk… it is Albumen. Tongue twister, isn’t it?
About 50 years back, we used to have a small poultry in our back yard. It all started with ‘Australian black’, ‘ White Leghorns’ and ‘Red Rhodes’. Dad would bring selected eggs of thoroughbred hens from all over India. A few eggs could be adjusted in the food basket on our return home without mom objecting to it.
We always had ‘pinkish’ or ‘brown’ eggs from our brood. Dad could never eat white eggs available in the market. He used to call them ‘vegetarian eggs’, meaning genetically modified. Ours were ‘Desi eggs’, pure as pure can be, from hand raised and hand fed chicks with the choicest of grains. Desi eggs are still in great demand. Hens would be separated to hatch selected eggs for twenty one days. Cocks/roosters were reared from the same batch to service them. The biggest and strongest were carefully selected. Rest of them were on our plates.
Dad would ensure, if any cock, ‘cock-a-doodle-doed’ in the afternoon during his siesta, it was in the cooker in the evening. Roosters were also raised keeping in mind various festivals and parties which were a permanent feature like birthdays and Christmas. Besides, a healthy reserve of birds was kept for visiting relatives. Mom learnt the secrets of cooking from Dad and would serve the most delicious and mouthwatering dishes.
Eggs used to be the ‘poor man’s non veg at our home. It would be mutton or fish at dinner everyday. If not, then some shikar. If that was not available, then we were sent around the school campus to get some pigeons and doves, if not partridges with the air gun. If that too won’t work out then the SOP for mom was to make ‘Anda curry’. Breakfast was porridge and eggs without fail.
Sometimes we would find a ‘bonus’ in an egg i.e., ‘two yolks’. I am not sure of the reason why this happens, but one is aware that sometimes if one is lucky, you get two yolks. It is the tastiest part of the egg. Egg lovers would agree.
While serving in the Army, someone associated yolks with an increase of bad cholesterol. People would eat eggs and show off that they were very diet conscious. A particular senior officer would only eat egg whites. My standing instructions to the cook were to never waste those yolk. One would have an egg sunny side up with three yolks.
It was a different issue that a particular senior officer had a fantastic appetite for pakoras, deep fried in oil, which definitely led to cholesterol outburst. In front of us, he would lecture us on how and what to eat of an egg. We would giggle to ourselves and agree in totality with him. Then there were folks who would insist that eggs do ‘garmi’ inside during summers. One avoided such folks.
Last week, I was at the egg shop. A person and the shopkeeper were in a heated discussion on the quality of eggs. This man got every second egg changed. He called the smaller sized ones as ‘tittar ke ande’ or partridge eggs. Well, actually they were quite small. Poultry farmers may know the reasons for the small size. I was not in a mood to get into their tutu-mai-mai.
That is when this shopkeeper revealed, if he wanted bigger eggs, they are available but are costlier and would contain two ‘Zardis’ as yolks are called. I caught that conversation and told him to pack one tray with ‘double zardi’ eggs. There were two reasons, firstly I love zardi and secondly, I went back to my childhood. The shopkeeper gave a guarantee, if any egg had one yolk, he would replace the whole tray free of cost.
If at a marginal cost one is getting one yolk free, any one will pounce on the offer. I am waiting for that one egg with one zardi. Will I be lucky to get a tray of eggs free and enjoy sardi main zardi? I wonder!!!!!!!!
JAI HIND
© ® NOEL ELLIS
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