Bhotna Food Mela cum Women Meeting on 2nd April 2009 The second women meeting at Bhotna village was even more interesting. Many more traditional dishes were prepared and the method of preparation was explained by the women. Many kinds of sweets called Bhoot Pinne, Gur ka Sharbat, Chibran di Chutney, Jowar di roti, Chaulan dian pinnian, Kanak da mithha dalia, moth bajre di khichri, lassi, nimbu da khatta mittha achar, etc and rather five different varieties of Bhoot Pinne were prepared. Bhoot Pinne are a kind of laddoos prepared from jaggery millets like Jawar, bajra or wheat. Women explained the method of preparation. Seven children were also present at the meeting. At the end of the meeting the mouth watering dishes were served. Everybody, particularly the some seven children present at the meeting liked the dishes and said that they would ask their parents to prepare these dishes. A video of all the dishes where women were explaining their method of preparation was also made.Moth Bajre ki Khichri and Bajre ki Roti cannot become a routine affair because of the onset of summer season and such dishes are generally consumed in the winter season.Some women gave in their names that will plan for Bajra cultivation in Kharif season. There names are as under.1. Amarjit Kaur 2. Jaswant Kaur3. Balwinder Kaur4. Manjit Kaur5. Mukhtiar Kaur6. Manjit Kaur7. Manjit Kaur8. Surinderpal Kaur9. Harbans KaurBajra and Jowar is already cultivated for fodder purposes but not for human consumption. Punjabi farmers have this additional excuse that birds destroy their Bajra fields. I am still looking for reasons to combat that.An exercise to find out the number of local greens that can be identified by women and the ones that are still being used as food and medicinal herbs was done by showing them a book called Nourishing Traditions Local Greens published by Andhra Pradesh Farmer Managed Groundwater Systems Project. Some women identified with 30% of the greens. They are not much aware of the medicinal value of most of the greens. Perhaps a wider exercise needs be done with the older women. A session on traditional seeds was part of the meeting. A woman named Harbans Kaur possessed the traditional seeds of almost all the vegetables. Many women possess one ort the other kind of traditional vegetable seeds, but they don’t store a good quantity of seeds for the next season and seed exchange among them is yet to be introduced.The issue of Crop residue burning (wheat straw) was also discussed among the women. Women were already aware of the fact that residue burning causes immense harm to their crop field but due to a lack of will, and the haste of farmer at the onset of kharif season to sow as early as he can and a lack of proper system in place, crop residue burning is still widespread. A committee of women was formed from among the ones who were present in the meeting who will start a campaign in the villages against the crop residue burning. The members include:1. Amarjeet Kaur2. Harbans Kaur3. Mukhtiar Kaur4. Shinderpal kaur5. Balwinder Kaur6. Manjit Kaur7. Gurdial Kaur8. Harbans Kaur9. Sukhveer Kaur (student of 10th Standard)10. Manjit Kaur11. Mohinder Kaur12. Harpal Kaur13. Angrez Kaur14. Mandeep Kaur15. Shinder Kaur
