Kama

As tradition built it

Soak overnight; boil each grain 2 to 3 hours; dry until crisp; mill.

Ingredients

The flour

• 5 kg barley
• 5 kg rye
• 5 kg wheat
• 10 kg oats
• 3 kg peas
• 2 kg beans
• as needed cold water, for soaking and boiling

To eat

• 2 glasses to every ½ glass of kama sour milk or kefir
• optional honey or sugar

Method

1. Soak the grain one night in cold water.
2. Boil each kind separately 2 to 3 hours, until the grains are quite soft but not yet burst.
3. Spread them on the oven floor to dry, stirring often at first and less once they begin to dry.
4. Dry until completely dry and crisp, taking them to a light brown but no further.
5. Grind to a fine flour at the mill and sieve it.
6. To eat, stir ½ glass of kama into 2 glasses of sour milk or kefir, sweeten with honey or sugar if you like, and eat at once.

Notes

This is one recorded household ratio, run at bulk scale; grains, peas and beans were traditionally mixed in whatever proportion a household actually grew.

The recipe is from Ühistegelised Uudised, 1936, as the Mulgi Culture Institute republishes it; it says the proportions may be changed to taste. Postimees quotes a 1931 Eesti Naine recipe from Lia Virkus and Pille Ende's book Kama: less barley, a few handfuls of salt in the cooking, dried in a hot oven with the door open and then shut.

What a modern chef changes

A silken, aerated kama mousse, not a coarse porridge

Method

1. Roast each grain separately to its own optimal colour, oats lightest, rye darkest, rather than one blended roast.
2. Grind each grain in a dedicated spice grinder to a genuinely fine flour, finer than a stone mill typically achieves.
3. Fold the finished kama flour into a high-power blender with live kefir and a touch of set honey; blend until fully aerated.
4. Pass through a chinois for a silken, mousse-like result entirely unlike the traditionally coarse porridge.
5. Serve chilled in a glass as a dessert course rather than a breakfast, with a few whole roasted grains scattered on top for texture.