It's avare kai odour everywhere

The villages are now filled with their taste and odour. Avare kalu uppittu, chitranna, boiled avare kalu, sweets like avare kalu payasa, holige… there a number of mouth-watering dishes.

Flat beans (avare kai) is one of the main food items of the village people. It is in a way reflection of the traditional rural life. Flat beans are used abundantly in different food items in villages. It is a part and parcel of rural menu.

For those who like flat beans, ‘avare season’ (December-January) is an unforgettable period. People of all ages like to taste the rasam made of avare beans soaked in water. Flat beans grown in winter is of high demand now. Town-dwellers are more eager to buy them. It is a common scene to see large crowds in front of Flat beans shops nowadays.

Farmers prepare a variety of cuisines from flat beans on the occasion of Makara Sankranthi. Many farmers grow them in their paddy fields. However, due to the attraction towards ginger in the recent days, the area allotted for avare crop has considerably declined. Hence, flat beans arrive from Arakalagudu of Hassan district and Piriyapattan of Mysore district to Kodagu markets.

In the meantime, farmers growing flat beans incurred huge losses due to untimely rains. If something has survived, it is bought for minimum prices in the market. Shivappa from Aluvara said a kg of flat beans values up to only Rs 10-15 in the market. Rame Gowda from Chikkattur said farmers need special encouragement from the government to grow flat beans, the favourite vegetable of both rural and urban people.