What is Upma?

Upma is roasted rava (semolina) cooked with water into a soft, fluffy, savoury porridge, tempered with mustard seeds, urad dal, curry leaves, green chillies and ginger, often with onions, cashews and a fistful of vegetables thrown in. It is fast, cheap, filling, and made from whatever is in the cupboard — which is precisely why it has the reputation of being the breakfast nobody requests but everybody eats. Generations of South Indian kids have groaned 'upma again?' at the table while their mothers point out, correctly, that it took ten minutes and they should be grateful.

Despite the slander, good upma is a genuine craft: the rava must be roasted to the right nuttiness, the water-to-rava ratio judged so it's neither gluey nor dry, and the tempering bloomed properly so the curry leaves crackle. In Andhra and Telangana homes it's eaten with a side of coconut chutney, spicy gunpowder podi, or simply a spoon of sugar and ghee for the sweet-tooth faction (a genuinely divisive household debate). Its most famous double act is upma paired with pesarattu — the green-moong dosa — a combination so beloved it has its own name and its own dedicated fans.