The South Indian Snack That's Perfect For Diwali
Diwali is India's most popular and important festival, with billions of people from different faiths celebrating yearly, per National Geographic. Diwali is known as the "festival of lights" and comes from the Sanskrit word "dipavali," meaning "row of lights." Diwali celebrates the victory of light, knowledge, and good over darkness, ignorance, and evil. People celebrate Diwali with family gatherings, feasts, fireworks, prayer, and charity, and it symbolizes the beginning of a new year. Diwali happens on different days each year as decided by the Hindu lunar calendar.
According to the Hindu lunar calendar, per Britannica, Diwali festivities commence sometime during the Hindu months Asvina and Kartika, right before a new moon is projected to happen. These months usually line up with the Gregorian calendar's October and November. The celebration spans five days, with each day having its own significance.
The first two days of Diwali are spent making sweets, praying to the goddess of good fortune and wealth, Lakshmi, and cleaning and decorating homes with rangolis, which are created on the floor from powder, rice, colored sand, or flower petals with various designs. The third day is very important, as this is when people attend temples to further honor Lakshmi. Many also have feasts with family and friends and set off fireworks. The fourth day is the first day of the new year and people usually give gifts, while the fifth day is for appreciating siblings.
Observing? Here's a South Indian snack that's perfect to enjoy during Diwali celebrations.
Murukku is a crispy, savory snack from South India
This year's Diwali celebrations began on October 24, 2022, with the most important day of the festival being October 24, 2022, per National Geographic. As mentioned above, partaking in feasts with family and friends is a big part of Diwali, and a perfect snack to enjoy during the festival is known as murukku, according to Times of India. Murukku, also referred to as chakli in North India, is a popular snack in South India. According to The Hindu, murukku means "to twist" in Tamil and is often eaten while sipping tea and enjoyed at festivals, such as Diwali (per Dassana's Veg Recipes).
Murukku is a crunchy, circular fried snack made from rice flour and lentil flour (also called urad dal, black gram, or matpe bean flour, according to My Favourite Pastime). In addition to the flours, murukku dough has red chili powder, salt, white sesame seeds, asafoetida powder, carom or cumin seeds (depending on your preference), ghee, and water. The dough is kneaded, separated into portions, and pressed through a murukku (or chakli) maker. The machine presses the dough through a star-shaped opening, and the dough is then spiraled around itself to make circles. After that, the murukku dough is fried until golden and crispy.
Curious about the proper way to eat this celebratory snack? This YouTube video from Yoodo provides a nice overview of an array of devouring styles.