Friday, January 20, 2006

Thamattavaraka and Aamanakku

I have heard of a number of varieties of beans. You have the English beans, the avarakai(dont know the english counterpart names but will give u a description of the vegetable) ( Flat broad beans) and the Kotthavarakai ( the think long light green ones). Three is all I know( contradicting my first sentence i know.. kandukadheinga) but only today I heard of a new variety .

Aparently this is a distant cousin of our beans called avarakai and this one is called Thamattavarakai :D...(I have been repeating this word the entire day in fear that I would forget it :) There was a creeper ouside our complex and a lady in the van that I take to commute to office was commenting on it when I got in today morning. She said 'Thamattavaraka'. I said 'Uma akka varala'. Everybody burst out laughing and then this lady points to this creeper and a fruit( er.. vegetable) and says 'Thamattavaraka'. It is a slimmer version of avarakai and I believe very tasty as well. That was one new word for the day

The second word was 'Aamanakku'. This again is a wild plant and people in the village extract oil from it. This oil is supposed to be the purest form of oil and has a lot of healing powers.

Good then. Two new words stored in my memory... but the one I like the most is the Thamattavarakai :)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am really AMUSED :d ! No better word to express what I felt after reading it :)) !

Don't know if you like 'Thamara-kazhangu Vatthal" - basically the shoot of lotus dried and fried :)) !

Vijay Ramamurthi said...

:)

Naveen said...

:)

Aamanakku is the seed from which they extract Vezhakkennai (Castor oil!) :)

Arvind Srinivasan said...

karamani ?

Jagan said...

uma akka varala ..ha ha ..nice one machi ..these words new to me too ..ofc , am only gud in madras tamil and not the sanga tamil crap ..

wanna learn madras tamil ?

kaushik said...

hi
kothavarakka is awesome!!!
dont know abt other varieties...just eat up whtever mom cooks....
but anyways, really fine blog...me enjoyed it!!

Anonymous said...

One thing I have noticed over the years is that any thing that's good for health doesn't taste good...So to stay healthy eat what u don't like (Punch line ;))

Avarakkai, Kothavaranga paartha-le allergy enakku ...Edhu poraadhu-nu ennum onnu veraiya....OMG!!!

Enakku therinja Beans...
1) Broad bean
2) Soyabean
3) Kidney bean
4) Coffee bean
5) Mr. Bean
and I like the last one only... :)

Vidya said...

@Mr.Seagull - I havent tasted that have heard that its good

@Vijay - :)

@Naveen - he he I didnt know that.. But I knew its usage :)

@Aravind - As I had mentioned I only remembered 3 :)

@Jagan - Hey naanum chennai than pa.. But Chennai slang is a little hard to immitate for me.. Altho I do understand it :)

@Kaushik - :) good you liked it

@Ashwin - semma punch dialog da! Eppadi ippadi evalo beans peru teinju vetcindu iruka?? sooper po!!

gils said...

really amusing post......hmm...aamanaku...isnt it something to do with the diet of buffaloes...punnaku aamanakulaam ..hmm..sounds way too herbivorous..hehehe