Mutton Stew

Most Malayalee Christian families make Stew as an accompaniment with the soft and lacy paalappam. Kerala Mutton Stew without any doubt is a completely Western dish changed to adapt to the Malayalee palate. I don’t need to check any history but the basic method and soul of this dish screams foreign. Hence, Stew is spice-less according to Indian standards.

I was not a big fan of this watery version of a mutton curry as I called it ealier. My mom too hated it and I don't remember her cooking it ever. Though I didn’t mind eating it, I never had any interest in cooking it. Which Malayalee wants to cook something where you don’t have to fry some spices which will burn your nose, grind some spices which will burn your hands while mixing it to the dish? Whenever I checked the recipe it had an ingredient ‘flour’ or maida (as we call it). Nah! I am not going to put flour into a Kerala dish.

Then one day I was bullied. “You cook mutton stew!” shouted the indispensable potluck 'head' one fine day in an obscure meeting of housewives.

I want to cook something complicated, I pleaded. But they were adamant.

So I checked the recipes books and liked one written by the old faithful Mrs. K.M Mathew.

I am not gloating here, but seriously I liked what I made. It is not watery if you cook it properly. It is not spice less if you follow the instructions and sneak in a little more pepper. Viola! I love stew. I now make it regularly as an accompaniment to appam. My husband and his whole family love gravies. So he loves stew since he can make his fingers swim in the gravy unlike any other dishes. Stew is technically supposed to have lot of gravy than any other curry.

Mutton – Cut into bite sized pieces. Yes, bones are welcome. – 3 cups
Cinnamon sticks – 1 inch length as whole – 2
Clove – 10
Green Cardamom whole – 8
Whole black pepper – ¼ cup crushed. Do not grind, just crush.

Onion diced – ½ cup
Green chilies slit – 6
Ginger diced very thin – 1 table spoon
Garlic – 20 pods
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Potato – 1 cup

Unbleached All purpose flour – 1 table spoon
Vinegar – 1.5 teaspoon

Fresh Thick Coconut milk Cream – ½ cup
Coconut milk thinner – 3 cups
(If using canned coconut milk, take out the crème from the top without shaking the tin. This will be the thick coconut milk)

Heat 5 tsp oil, in low flame sauté the Cinnamon sticks, cardamom, clove and black pepper. Sauté onion, green chilies, ginger and garlic diced, and curry leaves. Keep aside this whole spice mix.

Heat 2 tsp oil, add flour and sauté again for two minutes in low flame. Add the mutton and sauté again. Add vinegar and enough salt and cook this meat in thin coconut milk. Cook in medium flame. Stews are supposed to be cooked slowly, but if the mutton is too hard, cook it for ten minutes in a pot and then cook it in the pressure cooker.

When meat is 3/4th done, add the sautéed whole spice mix and the potatoes. Add 1.5 teaspoon of vinegar again into this and add salt again. Cook covered until meat is well done. Lower the flame completely, add the thick coconut milk and add 15 count whole black pepper. Keep for one minute and remove from heat.

Whenever thick coconut milk is added to any dish, make sure the milk gets only lightly warm. It shouldn’t be boiled. This you should make sure depending on the type of stove you use. If you use a heating coil, make sure you pot doesn’t sit on the coil after switched off.

Serve with rice or appam or any other rice based dishes. Since this dish is very mild in spices, you can turn up the heat by increasing the crushed pepper.

Recipe source: Mrs. K.M Mathew Cook books.

Also read:
Shynees Mutton Ishtu
Bee's Vegetable Ishtu

Guess

An Indian woman and her kitchen cannot live without me. But I am too bitter to eat. What am I?

Nature's Shampoo (Thaali)

This is not about food. I can eat all I want, but who will take care of my hair? :-) I just want to note down some Kerala traditions.

Malayalee women are known to have abundant lustrous long, a little curly and dark black hair. We massage our hair and scalp with a little coconut oil everyday and wash it off. Many wonder how we do it everyday. But once you get used to the routine it is just a normal thing as brushing your teeth.

Earlier, that is even before my grandmother, kondakettal was the fashion.

Source Excerpt: Kondakettal (hair being bunched upon the left side of the head with strands of jasmine flowers circling it) was accepted as the coiffure of the art form. In any old picture of traditional Kerala women one can see this coiffure, let alone the royal women in Ravi Varma paintings.

This is a movie still of a recent Malayalam movie (Ananthabhadram). Wanted to show you the old hair style. No, this is not how we wear our hair now. :-)

Couple of years ago, short hair became fashionable and there were many Western type hair styles. I remember Remo in Cochin for a show and looking around wondered what happened to the stories of Malayalee women with long hair because all he could see were short haired women. Hehehe. However, now long hair is back in fashion.I never cut my hair short, but honestly few times I have had the urge to do so. But you know once you cut it; it will take years to grow it to the same length.

Hibiscus plants are abundant in each and every Kerala home. We make a shampoo out of it. It is so simple to make and very good for your hair. Pluck some hibiscus leaves, like a handful and put it in like one cup water. Shred or grind it in a mixer or what I do is, I just squeeze squeeze with my hand while watching TV. Then strain the thick juice which is a little slimy and use it to wash my hair. No need to use anything else. You can refrigerate this upto one week. This is known as thaali in Malayalam.

If you continuously use it for more than a week, your hair just turns sooo soft and healthy.

GBP Announcement

We can grow veggies in Winter
We can grow veggies in Winter
(repeat after me please)

Don't believe me? Please check out the wonderful Green Blog Project Winter 2007 Round Up by the lovely Mandira of Ahaar.

Missed the deadline for Winter. You mean, it is already Spring there? Dont worry. We have one coming up on Summer, GBP Summer 2007. Who is hosting it? Ah! I tricked Deepz into doing that :).

If you just landed from another planet, check out What is GBP all about? :)

Break!

(Trying to post this via email.)

On a break! (Yes, I am broke too!) :-)

Keep all those dishes warm until I get back home. tata. cee you. bye bye.

Sour Ginger / PuliInji

I had lot of plans for Winter GBP including carrots, cabbage etc. But since I got sick, everything flopped. But hope there are some entries for those veggies this coming GBP round-up.

I only have one entry for this Winter round-up. Mandira of Ahar is hosting this year's Winter GBP. Deadline is on April 10 2007.

Last year we had a wonderful GBP round-up with 41 entries. It was fantastic! (I lost my old post with around 40 plus comments on my old blog when Blogger beta died on me. Could recover only the post but not those valuable comments) :(

Inji is Malayalam for Ginger. If you know how to type Ginger, you will be bombarded with lot of information.

An old article from Indian Express caught my attention,

Excerpt:Cochin ginger , still considered the finest of ginger varieties by exporters .

Cochin ginger is second only to the legendary Jamaican ginger for its suitability for drying. While most of the ginger available in India now is suited only to be used as vegetable, low fiber content has made the Cochin ginger an all-time favorite with exporters.

Even though Ginger is from China, Ginger cultivated in Kerala has an exclusive flavor, due to the uniqueness in soil. It is smaller in size, has less fiber and has less water content than the commonly found variety. Potency of Kerala ginger is double fold than the other varieties.I had planted some ginger in a pot six months ago. The leaves die when ginger is mature.

As usual, there are many methods to make Sour Ginger or Puli Inji. I have heard Kerala Brahmins don’t add coriander seeds to this dish. My version has coriander seeds. This method of preparation is from Trichur or towards Northern Kerala. If you move towards the South, they add coconut pieces to this dish and preparation is slightly different. However this is the best way of preparation for longer shelf life.

Ginger scraped and cleaned cut into 2 inch pieces crushed into thin fiber like pieces. Crushed is the word here, Do not use a food processor and make a paste please. – 1 cup.

Whole coriander seeds – 3 tsp, Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tsp, Chili powder or red dry whole chilies – 1 tsp, Mustard Seeds – ¼ tsp. Roast everything in 1 tsp gingelly oil for one minute. If chili powder is used, add it towards the end and take off from fire immediately.
Grind to a watery paste with tamarind water (3 inch tamarind piece soaked in 1 cup of warm water and strained).

Shallow fry ginger in coconut oil until light brown. Strain the oil. In a non-reactive cooking pot, add fried ginger and the tamarind paste, salt and 2 cups of water and let it boil in high flame. Do not close with lid. Remove from fire when the dish thickens and add 2 tsp of jaggery to balance the flavors.

Heat 1 tsp of coconut oil (can use the strained oil from frying ginger), splutter 1 tsp mustard seeds, saute 1 sprig of curry leaves, ¼ tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add to the dish. Serve with rice.Sour Ginger prepared this way stores well for one month in your refrigerator and a whole week outside. This is served like a pickle or condiment. It is said, this is equivalent to 101 curries. The taste is so unique and delicious; if you ever taste it once; a slight memory of this dish creates floods in your mouth. I can confidently challenge anyone to come up with a dish in ginger better than this.

If you have never tasted this simple yet World’s best recipe on ginger, do try.

Curd v. Yogurt

Ref: Pulisseri comments

Curd is an Indian variety of Yogurt. Look what Wiki says,

Dahi yoghurt of the Indian subcontinent is known for its characteristic taste and consistency. The English term for a specific yoghurt in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan is curd.

Even if Wiki didn’t say that, I was pretty sure about it.

Curd’s texture, smell, taste is way different from the yogurt you get in U.S. I had painful cravings for pulisseris when I was curd-less in my life in U.S. I will try to make pulisseris with yogurt and it will end up pathetic. First the coconut taste will dominate and second there will be no puli (sour) in the dish which is a must. My life was incomplete and puli-less. Since I used to have longer stopovers from India to U.S, bringing curd culture was very difficult. Then I chanced upon a curd culture from a temple and my life has never been the same.Some tips and tricks. What you should do when you get hold of that curd culture to keep it alive? First make a large container of curd. Then distribute it all your friends. Yes, I know, I know...but this is not for the ‘sharing’ thing, but it is for keeping the curd culture alive when you are on a vacation or you just spoiled the entire batch of curd etc. But you will come across as a sharing angel, hehehe. Devious, uh?

How to obtain curd culture in U.S?

Temples are good source if they have kitchens. In U.S most temples are welcome to everybody. So go ahead, visit the beautiful temples and ask someone to show you the kitchen. I am sure you will be helped. We Indians are good and helpful people, especially inside the temple premises. hehehehe

Visit Bee’s information about curd. I still doubt whether she has the authentic curd until I have tasted it. ;)

What next? I will send you the curd culture. Yes, I will do it; if you leave me the address as a comment here (I am moderating comments so your address will not be revealed).

I am willing to ship it in next day air to one person. If someone is willing to pay the shipping costs, I will ship it to more people. But the first person who asks me will get it free. Leave a comment here with your postal address. You should have a blog or I should know you at least from your comments here and there. I am not going to ship it to complete strangers. Sorry.

When you get it, please ship to someone else and pay it forward. Let the Curd spread! Let us stop the invasion of Yogurt in our lives. Hehehe.

You cannot make pulisseris with yogurt you get in US. End of discussion. :-) . One more time someone tells me U.S yogurt is curd, grr….

Plantain Pulisseri

I can safely say most part of authentic Kerala cuisine is curd based. We love our pulisseris. We make it in a hundred different ways with a hundred different ingredients. Ah-ha! I know, if you are in U.S, you are thinking of something called yogurt. Nope, Nah! Yogurt is not curd. Phlueeze.

How to make Curd? Read Dhanya or Indira. I make mine in full throttle whole milk.

Where to get the real Indian curd active culture? If you have a Hindu temple in your state, mostly their kitchen will have it. Beg, borrow, steal!

Or, next time bring it from India if you will reach home in 24 hours. Mix a little bit of active culture with milk and throw it into your suitcase, it would turn curd by the time you reach U.S if you don’t have any lengthy stopovers.

You cannot make this dish with yogurt. You have to have curd, the real sour curd.Pulisseri in Malayalam means ‘sour dish’.

Two Raw Plantains – Wash thoroughly but do not take off the skin. Just scrape out the protruding rims on the skin. The skin gives it a very unique taste. Cut them into 2 inch pieces. Cook them thoroughly with a little salt and ¼ tsp turmeric powder in water. Cook until done.

Grind together 1 cup coconut, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 5 green chilies into a fine paste. Add to the cooked plantains. When it boils, lower the flame and cook for another ten minutes. With lowered flame, add 4 cups of beaten curd to this and keep on stirring until the curd is just warm to touch. Do not boil it.

Take off immediately from heat.

Heat 1 tsp coconut oil, splutter ½ tsp mustard seeds, 2 sprigs of curry leaves, 2 red chili split, ½ tsp fenugreek seeds in that order. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Shrimp with Mango

Note: Yahoo Portal Content Theft Identification Parade. Check it out!.

I really want to break free from this 'curry' tag given to all our dishes. Almost all Indian dishes are universally tagged as 'curry'. No, every Indian dish is definitely not a curry. “We have different names!" Can’t you hear them scream? I can.

So, it is just Shrimp with Mango, Malayalam name for chemmeenum mangayum.

Shrimp is not Prawn. I remember having an argument with my boss at a restaurant and me googling the whole Internet for information. Before I moved to U.S, there existed only one i.e. prawns. In U.S however everything is a shrimp.

Chemmeen, smaller size of prawns is much tastier. Kochi in Kerala, India is very famous for its shrimps, prawns, tiger prawns harvesting. Kerala’s backwaters are perfect for prawn harvesting. However most of the catch is exported and we locals don’t even get to see them. In India, Shrimp or Prawns harvest season is normally from February to March. That’s the only time you get them a little cheap.

This shellfish is a delicacy everywhere in the World. It is said to be a little high in cholesterol. Clean shrimp. Take out the outer shell, pinch out its head and tail. Cleaning shrimp this way is called as chemeen nulluka or pinching shrimp if translated from Malayalam. This phrase is also used to tease Christians who miss the head and tail of a Sunday mass. Try to pinch the head and pull out the dark vein that runs through the middle. Or, just part the belly and take out the vein. Wash thoroughly.

For 3 cups of cleaned shrimp,
Mango slices (I buy frozen mango slices from Delight Brand, since it is difficult to get sour green mangoes in U.S) – cut into 2 inch. Mango should be sour. – 1 cup

Grind together 1 cup of fresh grated coconut, 1 tsp fenugreek seeds, 3 tsp red chili powder, 2 tsp coriander seeds, ½ tsp turmeric powder with enough salt. Grind to a fine paste with 1 cup of water.

Add the coconut paste to the shrimp and mango. Add 6 tsp of garlic diced, 3 tsp of ginger grated, 1/4 cup of shallots diced. Add enough salt and cook everything until it boils. Adjust to medium heat and cook for another 5 or 6 minutes uncovered.
Do not overoook shrimp.

1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 shallot diced thin and round, 1 spring of curry leaves, 2 whole dry red chili split into two. Sauté in 2 tsp of coconut oil when hot. Sauté until the shallots turn brown. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Honey

I remember…

…the times when I was a little kid, asking the taller ones in the family to get me the small cluster of flowers underneath each crimson cover of a banana blossom, from those tall banana plants…please..daddy..please..one more we will open?

…getting all excited and going from one banana plant to another in search of this honey in the early mornings, the big leaves of the plant wet in yesterday’s rain…

…sucking the honey from its cute little pouches…sucking until my eyes come out, my cheeks become hollow…sucking on my lips to get the last bit of that pure honey…

I remember…home…soaked in honey…

Can you see the small white pouch? That’s where the honey is stored in a banana plant’s flower.

Duck gravy Kerala style

While we were living in Singapore I have had the fortune to savor the famous Pekin duck. A whole duck, basted with lot of spices, slowly roasted to perfection. Carved duck meat is then rolled into paperthin rice papers and served. It is worth a visit to Singapore or China only for this. Please don’t try Pekin Duck at P F Chang’s in U.S. They have no clue how to make Pekin duck.

Duck meat is a delicacy mainly due to its scarcity. Fresh duck meat is available here in U.S, a little expensive, but we get them extremely fresh from duck farms out here. We point to a whole live duck gobbling around and they would kill and clean it for us. That fresh!

Duck meat is harder, so you would have to cook it longer. While cutting or cleaning the duck, you will realize how hard the meat is than chicken. Accordingly, use more time in cooking duck meat. Check Asian or other specialty stores for duck meat.

Here is a Kerala style recipe for preparing duck. (You can use this method for any poultry)Cut and clean into bite sized pieces. Keeping or removing the skin is up to you and depending on the duck you get. If duck is fatty, don’t keep the skin. If not fatty, keep the skin.

For 3 cups of duck,

3 tsp of garlic and 3tsp of ginger grated and made to a paste
1 cup of onion

Heat oil, Saute onion and when translucent, add ginger garlic paste, 4 green chilies diced, 2 sprigs of curry leaves. Add ½ tsp of turmeric powder and salt. Sauté well.

Dry roast 6 tsp coriander seeds, 4 cardamom, 10 cloves, 1 tsp mace, 2 stick of cinnamon and grind dry. Add this and 2 tsp of red chili powder to the onions and mix and saute for one minute. Add the cleaned duck and mix well and add 3 tbsp of water and enough salt cook well. Cook until the meat is very soft.

Now, Roast 1 cup of coconut, 3 pods of garlic and 1 sprig of curry leaves until light brown. Grind this to a paste.

Heat oil, sauté ½ cup diced onion until brown, and then add ½ cup diced tomatoes and ½ cup potatoes and add the ground coconut mixture with 1 cup of water. When it boils, add the cooked duck and cook with lid open until the gravy is thick.Serve with rice or roti.

Cabbage Thoran

What is in a simple cabbage thoran? It is the simplest thing anyone can do. Why blog about it then?

There might be one new wife out there, a new student out there missing home and mama terribly, frantically looking and searching and thinking what to do with this whole cabbage he or she just bought it from the shop. She/he would have tasted the cabbage thoran umpteen times, but never thought of cooking it until now. These simple recipes, as simple as they might seem, always are a help to the new little chefs out there.

I always encourage people to blog about these simple dishes which we normally don’t get in restaurants and it doesn’t matter if there is a hundred posts about the same cabbage. That’s what blogs are all about. No matter how many homes you visit or no matter how many times you eat the same food, each time, each home makes it a little different. To me, food blogs are a celebration of that to be precise.

That’s why food blogging is so much fun. You create, you serve the food at home and then you share the experience with your virtual friends. Sharing is the most beautiful thing in this World. Take off two or three leaves off the cabbage and wash thoroughly. Cut a portion of it without the stalk in the middle. The hard stalk in the middle and the base of the cabbage should be discarded.

I have never been able to replicate my moms cabbage dicing. She makes small cuts like tak tak tak and then dices it very thin. I have never been able to do that, so I cut off a seven inch large piece and then dice it small like I do with onions.

For 4 cups of diced cabbage,
Heat 2 tsp oil, splutter 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, sauté 1 red chili split, 1 sprig of curry leaves, add 3 tsp of whole urad dal until light brown and add ½ cup diced onion and sauté well until the onion is translucent.

Add ¼ tsp turmeric powder and add the diced cabbage and lower the heat to minimum. Add salt and mix well and cover tightly and cook for 10 minutes.

Coarse grind 3 pods of garlic and ½ cup of grated coconut, 4 green chilies and ½ tsp cumin seeds. Keep this mixture in the middle of the cabbage and then cover the mixture with the cabbage.

Cook closed for another 10 minutes in low flame. Mix well and sauté until dry.Serve with rice or roti.

Bloggers protest against Yahoo!

(This post is edited continuously as I get more and more links)

David Filo and Jerry Yang were once students, sitting inside a crowded trailer in 1994 thinking about the new Internet explosion and how to categorize and organize this information enormity. Their time, creativity and thoughts later evolved in to this big corporation now we all know as Yahoo!

Similarly, we are all now couple of bloggers investing our time, creativity and thoughts to express ourselves in this new and vibrant medium known as blogs. There are doctors, lawyers, house wives, farmers -- people in every social fabric finding this new medium of creativity a boon to relax from their hectic schedules or to utilize their free time. The content we bloggers provide is free, free only to entertain the readers.

Unless specified, it is not free to copy the text, copy the pictures and paste it onto some other blogs or some other type of media. There have been many cases of plagiarisation and as the blogs grew rich and professional in content, there were more thieves eyeing the content.

One such thief is none but Yahoo! itself. Yahoo! India is a subsidiary of Yahoo Corporation. When Yahoo! India launched Indian Language portals, they copied contents (recipes, poems, stories) from bloggers. Easy to start a portal, right? One cannot believe a huge corporation would do that. But it happened. Read the related stories, evidence.

1. Jif credits: Ziya

We all make mistakes, we apologize later. Don’t we all? To live in a society we have to follow such norms. We bloggers complained to Yahoo! and Yahoo! India. How did they respond? They simply refused to apologize. Yahoo! India office even had the audacity to claim copying contents is not copyright violation. The subcontractor (WebDunia) for Yahoo! India claims all was done on ‘good faith’. Contents were removed from Yahoo’s domain silently. If this was done on good faith and there was no copyright violation? Isn’t this a shame? Imagine if it was between two corporations instead of corporate vs blog? It would have been any lawyers’ dream.

Blogs are common man’s voice and oh yeah! Any corporate can swallow us. Here we are Yahoo! Come swallow us! Bulldoze us and eradicate us! Chew on our blogs and be content. Oops “content”, does that ring a bell Yahoo!?

Today March 5th we are protesting against this injustice by Yahoo! and Yahoo! India.

Hundreds of blogs have joined us against this blatant corruption and injustice by this conglomerate.

Here is a round up of the participating blogs. How to protest

2. Kaippalli writes on his blog,
Lets stop yahoo from making our creations into other peoples bastards. Stop the Bastardification of our content.

3. Devaragam writes,
Yahoo has to respond in the capacity of the entity responsible for the content of their website. Any other justification attempt will not hold water.

4. Nalan writes,
Apparently Yahoo, the giant, has a neck that has been drained of morality to the extent that has it handicapped from bending to tender an apology to a crime that it has committed.

5. Padippura sketches,
6. Jai and Bee writes,
You’re (Yahoo) a grinch. A really unsporting one. We knew it. You and your desi subcontractors all drank milk from a can.

7. RP writes,
Dear Yahoo, the stolen food appeared on your table, and so many of us have seen it before you removed it. Admit it!

8. Linda writes,
In solidarity with blogger friends, I ask you to please take a moment and read about one large corporation’s unethical infringement upon the rights of one individual.

9. Sailu writes,
I hate to give the unpleasant subject of plagiarism space in my blog. I’ve been a victim of it. Hopefully Yahoo! will have the integrity to respect the work of others as it expects others to respect its work and apologize. What happened to basic courtesy, decency and respect for other people’s efforts and work?

10. Alif sketches,
11. Jyothi writes,
In this context, 'content-theft' committed by Yahoo!India , (or Web-dunia, as the former complaines) is a severe mistake. It must be stongly condemned . Please don't steal away our dreams!

12. Sajith writes,
what Yahoo! did is simple theft, copying content from blogs without permission and claiming that its their property!. Shame Shame Yahoo!

13. Manisha writes,
They - Yahoo! - need to acknowledge intellectual property and copyrights of those whose contents they plagiarized. This holds for every other company seeking to launch a portal in India and the world over.

14. Rags writes,
I for one believe in open sourcing of information, free usage of information by anybody, but when someone(especially a corporation who are the torch-bearers of the concept of copyright violations) crosses a certain line by lifting content from an independent person, saying the original work is theirs, without crediting the content creator, then it should be dealt with seriously, which is exactly what's happening now.

15. Kannooran says, BOYCOT YAHOO INDIA!!!

16. Krish says, Yahoo!India (Malayalam), please do not lift contents from Malayalam blogs without prior consent.

17. Bindu writes,
I don’t want blogs to be an easy prey for any thieves to steal from them. (translated)

18. Nirmala writes,
Plagiarism : copying, illegal use, breach of copyright, bootlegging.
Example: Yahoos malayalam portal

19. Swarthan writes,(with audio)
This is parody of the famous Yahoo! yodle. I'm posting this in protest of Yahoo!'s plagiarism. The above yodle simply means, "Shame Shame, Puppy Shame." You don't deserve more, dear Yahoo!

20. Meenakshi writes, Yahoo, you are already due!

21. Dreamer writes,
Yahoo and webdunia has been the bullies of the school, who does not really bother to understand (or atleast pretend to) the depth of the water which they stand on.

22. Sakshi sketches,

23. Radheyan writes, I am keeping the black background sans a letter(Also to tell nothing here for yahoo to steal)

24. Wakkari writes,
Those web pages are protected under copyright law by Yahoo!, not by their content providers. It is not the responsibility of the concerned bloggers to know the various contract details of Yahoo! India.

25. Parajithan writes,
First, Yahoo! ‘surprised’ us with a reckless act of plagiarism. And, inevitably, forced us to question them, as well. A sincere apology, a few words, could have healed the wound and gained Yahoo! its credibility back.

26. Anita writes,
Dear Yahoo!you owe an apology to Suryagayatri, rather than tactfully removing the contents and blaming it on your sub contracters, i don’t think this is much to ask for.

27. Shaheen writes,
But to see Yahoo! do it is akin to supporting plagiarism and not promoting creativism. With all respect, it is undermining the good faith Yahoo! has developed over the years and it hurts.

28. Indosungod writes,
Yahoo used to be a company I admired from it days as a start up till a fews days ago,NOT ANYMORE, after their stand on the issue at hand and certainly not after I read some pretty offensive comments made by whom I suspect are their minions. It makes them look guilty as hell.

29. Sandeepa writes,
It would not do Yahoo much good if they rise up one morning to see an exact replica of their portal with their Logo, Design and Content stolen, right ? And that's why they have lawyers drawing up statements

30. Mullappoo sketches,31. Achinthya ( a non blogger) says,
Shameless theft - give it a highsounding euphemism namely plagiarism,be it done by a high profile glittering star like Yahoo or a nindescript blogger, be it that of a spicy sambar recipe or a well-intentioned, well-researched article on the ill-effects of pesticide - will always be theft. That too of the cheapest kind. A small sound - yet I hope to add mine to the clamour for justice.

32. Indira writes,
Not only Surya Gayathri, we as a food bloggers community do not think she has been treated fairly by Yahoo. So today is protest day against Yahoo and other stealers

33. Kithcen Fairy writes,
We are joining our hands against the shameless act -"Copying contents from others" .

34. Anjali writes,
We really feel let down that our loved Yahoo has choosen to lift content and tried to pass if off as their own.

35. Arundhathi writes,
I have been shocked by Yahoo! India's lack of respect for proprietal information. Fellow Bloggers have been attacked by Yahoo! where the big corporation has actually lifted content off their blogs, and posted it on the portal without any credit to the source. Incredible!

36. A.Yunus writes,
Yahoo! You are a Thief! A well renowned and shameless thief! I am ashamed to have wondered at your ability and technology at times. Iam ashamed to see that you use the power, fame an technology to steal!

37. Sul sketches,
38. Saptavarnam writes,
It needs a real great heart, courage to accept the responsibility of a mistake and Yahoo! India lacks all these. Passing the blame to their content provider WebDunia itself is some silly sort of childish excuse.

39. Umesh writes,
As a person who blogs in the Malayalam language, I protest the plagiarism and copyright violation Yahoo! and Yahoo! India did in preparing their Yahoo! Malayalam page. They prepared their pages by copying articles from Malayalam blogs without asking the permission from the authors. This is unfortunate and condemnable.

40. Advocate Sakeena, says
So far as the action of Yahoo or webdunia is against the common interest of bloggers, I also join and express my protest against those inceidents happened to the blogs of Su and others.

41. Venu sketches couple of cartoons (Malayalam)

42. Thulasi

43. Shaniyan

44. Revathi writes about a similar incident and how an Indian magazine apologized, HEY YOU YAHOO !! THIS IS ALL THAT TAKES TO RISE TO THE OCCASSION AND ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY. APOLOGIZING AND GIVING DUE CREDITS. REST YOUR CORPORATE BRAIN AND LEND THE ISSUE A HEART !!!

45. MKeralam writes,
Trying to fool the Malayalam language users certainly does not spell a fair business practice on the part of Yahoo. It is not by trampling on the rights of individuals and small publications that a giant corporation like Yahoo! India should flex its muscle. Where are its work ethics and philosophy on customer care and relations

46. Siddartha sketches,
47. Priyamvada writes,
Since Yahoo! expect others should respect their copy right, we, bloggers have every right to demand same from you. Yahoo! Stop blaming your subcontractor

48. Santhosh writes,
I protest against Yahoo’s unethical business practices in what is arguably one of the largest of its markets and demand an apology for violating bloggers’ copyrights.

49. Alappuzhakkaran writes,
We are protesting against Yahoo...! what are they doing??? stealing?? that too petty theft from the poor bloggers... ?

50. Raghavan PK says,
This is blatant plagiarism.You own an unconditional apology to bloggers for this misdeed which is certainly unethical by any standard.

51. Saramgi writes,
Dear friends, it's time to protest against Yahoo's shameless act of stealing matters and pictures from various blogs without the permission of the blog owners. Yahoo should apologize to all the bloggers whose contents are being copied and published without their approval.

52. Hari sketches and writes a comprehensive article on the story so far. Story is in Malayalam.
53. Sumitha says,
Dear Yahoo,copying and pasting the content from someones blog and claiming it as yours was so simple right?If only you had done something more simpler and that is acknowledging that person for her efforts.

54. Archana writes,
It is a shame that Yahoo-India failed to practice the proper etiquette of web publishing. If they are looking for solutions, start with a proper apology, try crediting the source for the content, and let Webdunia take some time off to refresh (or learn) their ABCs on copyright protection laws.

55. Mandira writes,
This is plagiarism, passing off someone's ideas and content as your known. Not only is this ethically wrong, this is illegal as well. As a blogger, I find it terrible, hurtful and offensive that my content (that I may have spent a day cooking, writing, and taking pictures) is in another publication without any acknowledgement.

56. Shilpa writes,
This was just a blog, but what if the same thing is done by giants like Yahoo!? what would they do if we copied their content? Would they keep quiet? Is it okay for them if we say one of my friend gave me this content, so this is not my responsibility?

57. Musical writes, These bloggers are ever willing to exchange and share their work, so why not give them due credit for their pictures and recipes, or request them for participating officially.....and don't give me this piece, as to how daal recipe would be more or less the same! Please, daal recipe may be more or less the same-but the language, presentation, little suggestions and pictures ARE NOT!

58. Trupti writes,
Support the rights of all the bloggers who share a glimpse of their families, their lives, their traditions with all of you. Protest against Yahoo's unethical ways and join us.

59. Arzoon says,
If you are that lazy that you can not bring yourself to ask somebody for permission, then you should be held accountable for the act.
A blog is an expression of an individual's thoughts. And it should be protected.
So, just join me in this protest. STOP PLAGIARISM.
Be an original. Stand out on your own...

60. GotCopy Blog writes,
Yahoo! has chosen to place itself outside the domain of any liability and asks those whose rights were violated to follow up with Webdunia. The material appeared on Yahoo!'s property. Yahoo! needs to acknowledge their mistake and tell us, the blogging world, that they will not lift content without our prior permission on the zillion other regional and language portals they will be spawning for the Indian audience.

61. Jyothsna writes,
It was unimaginable that a corporate giant like Yahoo! would resort to plagiarism!! It was appalling to hear about Yahoo! India lifting content from a blog without any attribution, credit or back link to the rightful owner!!

62. Sangeetha writes,
We take a lot of time and effort to work on our blog(s) and it pains me to see a certain section of people take such a casual attitude to our hard work. It just takes a moment to ask permission or give credit where it is due. Is that so difficult ?

63. Nupur writes,
But you know what hurts? When someone else, often a big corporation with pots of money, steals your words and photographs and uses them for their own commercial purposes. A small-time stand-alone blogger gets no recognition, no compensation, nothing.

64. Madhuli writes,
‘Nahi Chalega, Nahi Chalega PLAGIARISM nahi chalega’. It cannot happen, it canonot happen, plagiarism cannot happen - *translated from hindi)

65. Dhanya writes,
Yes I have heard the voice against Internet plagiarism. Exactly what I have heard may vary, depending on what I have read, or been listening to, and so been filtering the information or opinions that we all may encounter. But everyone is worried about it – And for good reason, I am with it!

66. Kunjans writes,
I strongly believe Yahoo should atleast admit there mistakes. They bother so much about protecting their on content (Please read yahoo's copyright notice if u have not). How can such an entity just keep quite when they are accused of a theft.

67. Maneka Nirmal writes,
Art heist - Yahoo guilty as charged !! So what makes it ok for someone to take your recipe, publish it to the world and call it their own – NOTHING !!! And what do you call someone who is blatant enough to take your recipe and then change some lines to call it their own – A THIEF!!! And what do you call someone who would partner with this thief for making a profit – A CORPORATE THIEF!!!

68. Kay writes,
This is outrageous! They didn't apologize... they didn't say that this will not happen again.. nothing! Shame on Yahoo! And those of you who say that we should take it up with Webdunia, either you don't get it or you just don't care.

69. Biryanikutty writes,
Yahoo School Of Plagiarism - Happy news for those 'wanna be great author, but no ink in my pen guys/gals'. IT giant Yahoo has started an online free demonstration on how to do it effectively. According to Yahoo, it is as simple as Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V as long as the keyboard you use, has got these 3 keys on it.

70. Prapra writes,
Yahoo!, its time for you to rise and 'shine' (if they can). We dont[sic] want you to be the role model for the world ahead. Its time..... not for you in this case of copyrights infringement, but for any corporate or individual, big and small to keep their emotions and ego aside and acknowledge their opposition.

71. Chandrika writes,
It is sad and shameful that a corporate giant like Yahoo India which ought to set a good example, is stooping down so low. Webdunia and Yahoo India could take a leaf or two from the book of publishing etiquette.

71. Vini writes,
Plagiarism is indeed a very annoying plague that eats away at creativity.Yahoo,you being the big corporation here,why don't you set an example by apologising?You will only gain more respect from us if you do that.


Above List PLUS the following list too...


Other Bloggers(Most are in Malayalam) joining the protest which follows roughly the wiki format:

1. ChandraShekaran Nair in Malayalam and Hindi blogs
2. Sisu
3. Pothuval
4. Kevin Siji
5. Shaanwaaz
6. Shiju
7. Balu
8. Kiranz
9. Thusharam
10. Appol Shari
11. Sugatharaj Paleri
12. Salini
13. Reshma
14. Sankuchithan
15. Moonstruck
16. Idangal
17. Visaala Manaskan
18. Navaneeth
19. Panikkan
20. Thamanu
21. Siji
22. Aravind
23. Viji Pinarayi
24. Bijoy Mohan
25. Leo Paul
26. Pathali
27. Gayathri's
28. Mridul
29. Shajudeen
30. Peelikkutty
31. Ittimalu
32. Lapuda
33. Remesh
34. Aravind Ghosh
35. Prathibhaasam
36. Lizabeth
37. Sandoz
38. Tharavadi
39. Vallyammaayi
40. Ageesh Parameshwaran
41. Vichaaram
42. Prasad
43. Satheesh
44. Rajeev
45. Panikkar
46. Ithirivettam
47. Chechiyamma
48. Kareem Mash
49. Nandan
50. Santhosh Balakrishnan
51. Cibu
52. Vishwaprabha
53. Kannoos
54. Chethana
55. Charukesi
56. Uncle
57. Satheesh(singapore)
58. Kaithamullu
59. Sreejith K
60. Mani
61. Sunil
62. VishnuPrasad
63. Evooran
63. Durvirodhi (Hindi)
64. Kisan (Hindi)
65. Gini
66. Poonaji
68. Saha
69. Drishyan
70. James Bright
71. Usha
72. Snehithan
73. Kochu Guptan
74. Patteri

A salute to blogger Suryagaythri for standing up for her rights!

Thank you all my dear bloggers for participating in this protest. We need to be heard. Yes!

Chikoo

Chikoos are in season again. Yay!

If there is a fruit I could grow in each and every inch in my yard, it would be a sapota or as I call it chikoo tree. I am not sure whether it is scarce in India, but I have never had enough of it.

It is a fruit from Mexico, popularized by Spanish and then by me :-)Excerpt
A rich source of digestible sugar, the chikoo is rich in protein, fibre and minerals like phosphorus, calcium and iron. Isn’t it funny to know the 'chewing' part of the chewing gum comes from the stem of this tree?

I remember going to a friend’s house, and they serving me with plate full of chikoos. There were some six medium sized ripe fruits. I couldn’t resist and by the time they said, ‘have’, I finished all of them without even thinking it is someone else’s house. Oh, I am still embarrassed about it.

My husband hates it which makes me more than happy since I don’t have to share this with anyone. I have never tried to convert him to a chikoo fan, specifically due to this :-)

A ripe fruit is soft to touch. You just need to part into two, by pressing your fingers on the fruit and slowly opening it up. Scoop out the flesh with your mouth. Mmmmm.

Dirty dirty games!

Yahoo India and Web Dunia are now playing the dirtiest of all games. Remember how a few Brits could divide us based on our cast, religion and even skin colour and could rule India for 100+ years?

The same game is unfolding right before your eyes.

First they send their 'sailors' to create a ruckus between bloggers implanting ideas like, Why should Yahoo reply or even apologize? We have removed the contents you see? They thought we all are dumb, especially being a bunch of girls. Oh, the jokes that would have gone around about us in their cubicles!

Okay, that didn’t work!

Then they send their trolls, insulting many bloggers out there who supported us, very well knowing, we are ‘Indian girls’, we cannot stomach insults and we would cow down! I haven’t read so much filth which were put as ‘comments’ in my entire life. It caused me a lot of pain and anger and tears, especially when I saw the same type of filthy comments on couple of my friends blogs too! I, one time even thought of just disappearing from it all. It was that bad. But did we cow down?

We didn’t!

Now, all that has failed and whats on their cards?

They emailed couple of people about having a ‘discussion’ at an obscure Wordpress blog about this on March 2nd, that is tomorrow. What’s the great idea behind that? Drown the March 5th Event, make bloggers fight among themselves and make this whole thing look like a circus. I am not going to even join the circus. Why should I even participate in this mockery of a discussion? First of all, I don’t like circus! :) and secondly I am not an idiot! (even tho' couple of people might disagree on that part) :)

So here we are, all ready for the Event on March 5th. Our sounds might be a little weak, a little hasty, but we will make sure we are heard!

Read about all the drama unfolding on copyrightviolations

Malayalam versions of this dirty trick on Su’s blog, Cibu’s blog, Santhosh’s blog, Vishwa's blog.