Word: millets
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...time he began work on La Grande Jatte, Seurat was also looking closely at Millet, whose bulky peasants figure behind many of Seurat?s magnificent drawings, and at the velvety etchings of Goya and Rembrandt. Seurat worked in soft, fatty Cont? crayon, dragging it across paper that had a rough, microscopically tufted surface. Minute threads of the paper?s whiteness remain visible beneath the crayon?s black, creating smoky gray and black textures of incredible depth...
Many cultures make singular contributions to humanity, and in the case of the Limbu people of eastern Nepal, it is the drink known as tongba. Outsiders rarely get to savor this heady millet brew, which would have remained virtually unknown outside this remote area if it wasn't for the occasional mention in guidebooks. But tongba is like Guinness to the Irish or whisky to the Scots: it's something to celebrate and revel in, and to stumble and sing under its influence...
...Tongba is made in a cylindrical wooden pot with polished brass banding (the tongba, from which the drink gets its name). This is filled with fermented millet seeds. Your host then adds hot water in a ritual reminiscent of a Japanese tea ceremony. Drinkers suck the alcoholic mixture through a bamboo straw with tiny filters to keep the seeds out, and it's a never-ending affair. You sit around the fire with a thermos flask topping up the pot for hours, and snack on spiced cucumber and mutton pieces known as sekura or sukuli. The locals will assure...
...taste for tongba, you might like to move on to the other mainstays of the Himalayan liquor cabinet, such as chang?a deceptively strong sour rice or millet brew with the texture of thin porridge. Then there's raksi, a distilled version of chang that resembles tequila. Order this with a tongba chaser, and you might have to forget about sightseeing for a while...
...AMARANTH More protein than most grains --WILD RICE A marsh grass, native to North America --MILLET Ancient grain used as birdseed...