The Kobbari Mithai My Mother Made

The Coconut burfi in Kannada is Kobbari Mithai. It as it is one of the most common sweets made across all communities in India, of course with a little variation. But the Kobbari Mithai I am talking about is the sweet my mother used to make, with an extraordinary taste, flavour and texture!

What I found so special about my mother’s skill was her art of cooking food to perfection, almost every time! Of all the various things my mother cooked she received outstanding appreciation for the Kobbari Mithai and the Vangi Bhaat. This is something I miss a lot since my mother’s sudden demise over a decade ago.

While making Kobbari Mithai, my mother would be very particular about the size and the type of coconut. You see, to get her level of perfection the coconut had to be perfectly ripe; neither tender nor too tough and she also had a specific thick bottomed vessel to make the Mithai. Once the coconut was selected, she would patiently get rid of as much fibre and loose particles as possible from its outer shell so that while manually grating, these brown fibres wouldn’t fall into the grated snow white coconut. Then while grating, she was particular about the exact amount of pressure to be exerted to get the right textured gratings and also the shell had to be carefully scraped so that the thin darker cover of the coconut didn’t contaminate the snow white scrapings! (Uff! So fussy.) Then she would eye-ball the remaining contents: sugar, milk, water and the cardamom powder. And after careful and continuous stirring for some twenty odd minutes, she would give a satisfied smile and transfer the contents to a pre-greased plate and level the contents and she would later slice the snow white cake into 1.5x1.5 inch burfis. The next job she did always elicited sly smiles from all of us and that was, hiding this tasty burfis from my father as he was crazy about sweets and she cared for his health a little too much! She would say, “Your father will attack the sweets like an ant, so I have no options but to hide it from him!” Then lovingly she would offer one piece of the mithai to him during the evening snack time. My father would play along innocently knowing well all those places where she hid the sweets and pilfer it when she would step out of the house! But both of them wouldn’t say a word about it to each other!

Even on the night she passed away, she had prepared this Kobbari Mithai as the next day was very special to her; one daughter’s wedding anniversary and another daughter’s birthday! After a normal day of work, she made the sweet late at night, she went to bed as usual but about an hour later, she woke up with sudden suffocation and within the next 10 minutes, on the way to the hospital she quietly passed away, without giving a chance to anyone to save her.

The following day, we were all busy with the last rites and mourning. Then the next day, we discovered the hidden Kobbari mithai and all of us; her husband, daughters, sons-in-law and the grandchildren devoured this sweet with tears in our eyes but tasting and enjoying every little piece and crumbs of that divine sweet she had prepared for us with so much of love.

The Kobbari Mithai my mother made always had an extraordinary taste, flavour and texture! It would be just perfect in all respects; neither too hard nor too soft nor crumbly. I have eaten this sweet many times after her demise but none could compete with what she made. Though my mother is no more, the memory of the Kobbari Mithai she made, is firmly embedded in my memory and I can virtually feel and taste it whenever I feel like. To me, it symbolizes my mother and her love for us and that is something I will not find anywhere or anytime ever!

 

@satchitananda,
Thanks a lot for your encouraging words.

 

@PavithraS
Moms are always special and whatever they cook tastes heavenly because of the secret ingredient 'Love!' I have heard so much about Vaththakuzhambu; yet to taste. Thanks for your kind words.

 

@Amica

Hi! Thanks a million for liking my first post and making me feel welcome.