Tribute to Gwaramari
By: Merina Mintoo
Tags: Food, Family, Nepal, Tradition, Memories

Photo by Mintoo

Tribute to Gwaramari

I am a member of a Toastmasters club (TM), where its members learn leadership and self-improvement skills through public speaking. My club met once a week in person before the pandemic. But since the COVID pandemic, we have been restricted to virtual meetings. Despite experiencing Zoom fatigue after numerous other virtual meetings throughout the week, I look forward to and eagerly wait for every Saturday morning TM meetings. These meetings bring positivity and different perspectives to me. After each meeting I am left with something to ponder upon.

Interestingly, for the past several meetings, we have been talking about “Gwaramari”. In Newari language, “gwara” means “fat” and “mari” means bread. So put together, the literal meaning of gwaramari is puffy, fat, fried dough, which is a common Newari breakfast. Although the recipe of gwaramari is very simple, one of my toastmaster friends spent seven minutes on a speech about this food item. She gave a detailed description of how to make it. It is actually one of the easiest foods one can make. All you need is a cup of flour, some water and a pinch of salt. Beat it into a thick batter. Heat the oil and scoop a ball with your fingers and semi-deep fry the batter. Wait till it turns golden brown and serve hot. There isn’t a “wow” factor in Gwaramari in terms of its recipe. But still my friends were not only talking about it but also making it and posting pictures in social media and our group chats.

As I heard more and more people recounting stories about gawarmari, I was compelled to think about why it was so special to so many people. I started revisiting my own recent and not-so-recent experiences.

During the lockdown, I attempted making gwaramari couple of times. They turned out to be a little different from what I remembered them to be from about 30 years ago. I didn’t realize so much time had passed since I had eaten gwaramaris, but my memories of them were still fresh. Gwaramari used to be my weekend breakfast. As kids, we bought them from a small tea-shop. There were a few famous gwaramari shops in the old part of Kathmandu where I grew up. The one I used to buy them from was a very small shop near my home. The shop could hardly fit four people in it. The wooden planks on the ceiling were darkened by the smoke emitted from the kerosene stove. Inside the shop, there was only one shelf with few packets of bread and boiled eggs on display. The shop served milk tea that was made in an aluminum pot that already had layers of burnt milk on its inside. This shop was run by a husband-and-a-wife couple. In my opinion, the gwaramari they sold were the best in town.

I was fascinated with the way they used to make them. I would wait eagerly outside the shop, along with many who lined up in early morning hours. The wife would bring a large earthen pot with the batter that was prepared a day before. Then husband would lit the kerosene stove. The buzzing sound of the stove and the smell of kerosene itself is very strong even today. I have waited in line countless times, and while waiting in line, I keenly observed their synchronized performance of making the most anticipated food. Here is how they operated: The man would first dip his fingers in water to avoid the batter from sticking, then he cupped a small ball of the thick batter in this palms and gently dropped small portions in the sizzling hot pan of oil so only half of the dough was submerged in the oil. The main trick of making a round puffy gwaramari is not to submerge the dough completely otherwise you would lose its shape. When the batter immerses in hot oil, the baking soda in the dough makes the top part of the dough gradually rise into a puffy, round and crisp that it that gwaramari delectable. Once the gwaramaris took their perfect shape, the wife would grab them with a steel tongue one at a time and flip them over. When they got brown enough, she would take them out with a large strainer. The husband would continue dropping the dough and they sizzled, and the wife flip and strain. Drop, sizzle, flip, and strain. Drop, sizzle, flip, and strain. This was the most organized dual operation and as a child watching this synchronized performance, it amazed me. The woman would then count gwaramaris and pack them in pieces of newspapers and hand them out to the people waiting in queue all morning. It was mostly kids who were tasked by their families to stand in line to get the fresh gwaramaris. But there were times, when an adult should show up and jump the line. When that happened, it infuriated me, but I couldn’t do much. Sometimes the line would be so long that the gwaramaris would be all gone before I could get them, and would have to go home empty handed. Most gwaramari operations around my house stopped after 9 a.m.

One of my TM friends shared her gwaramari story as well. She fondly recalled her childhood days going to her grandparents’ home on Saturdays to eat gwaramaris. Another friend recounted his story of getting into a big fist fight when some older boys tried jumping queue for his gwaramaris. He still has a small scar from the cut he got in that fight.

I realized we had some stories related to gwaramari. Whenever I talk about gwaramari, the memories are fresh that it feels like I can still smell and savor it. We all make different memories with the same object. The experiences might be good or bad ones but just one simple thing can bind us and at times we feel nostalgic and long for that.