Indian food - Do you cook it?

In Ladakh, buttermilk,ie the non-fat milk-related liquid liquid left in the butter churn is sour, because farmers add milk to a container with some curd (yoghurt) at each milking for a few days and then churn the butter out. The liquid (called tara in Ladakhi) is sourer than curd, thinner than lassi, but a lot of people here prize it.

Do you have a reference for this? To me the word seems a fairly straightforward derivation from mathya related to the verb math-/manthan meaning "to churn".

Samsad Bangla Abhidhan, Fifth Edition (2000), ISBN 81-86806-92-X

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I just checked with the interactive version of Turner's Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages. I much prefer the print version with its complete index but that would mean a trip to the library. From what I could figure out the Bangla word for "butter" is related to a root meaning "lump" that gives you मठरी in Hindi, not the one corresponding to मीठा. There is some more detail to be gleaned from this but that would get too technical like the role the root that gives you माथा in Hindi could have played here.

Interesting! Thanks for the link which has led me to something a little more meaningful as to the root of the Bengali word মাঠা (maṭhā = navaneet, makhan = butter).

While the "Samsad Bangla Abhidhan" does indicate Sanskrit "mrishto" as the root (that's a completely unfamiliar word to me), the "Bangala Bhashar Abhidhan" (by Jnanendramohan Das) indicates the root as Sanskrit "Manthaja", which makes much more sense, meaning "obtained from churning". It also indicates that Hindi मट्ठा (maṭṭhā) has the same root!

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Mod note: some posts have been moved to a new thread Fonts of Wisdom: do you get South Asian scripts on your screen?











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Thanks, Julia! You haven't been on the Choo-choo thread for some time.

Thanks Julia from me too,
distaff

And I'll add here my PS which got moved with the font posts:
PS sperehealfe does cook it.

what about Dal Makhni & Kofta, I don't cook these but I eat with pleasure

Sure. The Dal Makhni not so often (love to eat it, keep forgetting to make it), the kofta frequently, though more often in the form of Moroccan brochettes, which are a small version cooked on skewers.

Now you've got me hungry for them, and I haven't even had breakfast yet!

sperehealfe

Interesting how the spelling varies. I really like Dal Makhani which l am sure must be the same dish. I am hopeless at remembering things so I always think of it as Dal Meccano - a construction toy from my youth.

I played with Meccano too, starting with size 00 and then graduating to the bigger boxes. Here is something that should interest you. I'll put a link on the choo-choo thread as well.

"Makkhan" is "butter" in Hindi so dal with butter is "dāl makkhanī" or "dāl makhanī". Both the "a"-vowels are short so the word is stressed "mākhanī". The second, unstressed "a" can be dropped (it's a rule analogous to the one for the unaccented "e" in French) giving "mākhnī".

"Makhānā" (stressed on the penultimate syllable) on the other hand is the edible seed of a species of aquatic plant. (Euryale ferox). So "dāl makhānī" is dāl made, at least partly, out of makhānā. In Bihar this is a food eaten on special fasting days on which grain and pilses are taboo (phalāhār, i.e. fruit-diet).

And Makhana is also a naughty Punjabi term of endearment

Please give some indication of vowel-lengths/stresses so that I can get an idea of how to pronounce this word!