How the aata chakki became an integral part of our households

Madhubala Mahesh Shah is a retired government employee who spent a greater part of her life in Bhavnagar, a town in Gujarat best known for gathiya, a deep-fried savoury snack made from chickpea flour.

Pulses such as chickpea, beans, and lentils are central to the Gujarati cuisine and typical Gujarati meal features these across all courses, including desserts.  This is equally true for Rajasthani cuisine, which also doesn’t feature any fresh vegetables, given its arid climate. As chef Ritu Dalmia, a Marwari explains, “Rajasthani cuisine was pretty lentil, besan and atta related.”

As a result, the electric flour grinder – better known as the aata chakki – is also a familiar presence in kitchens in western India. Dalmia elaborates on her memories, and says, “When we were growing up, everything was made in chakki ka atta. Whether it was besan (gram flour), whether it was atta (wheat flour), whether it was kuttu (water chestnut).”

She notes that every Ekadashi, kuttu was a bread that used to be eaten. “Mogar, which was a mix of moong and besan, is another atta.” The resultant dishes, made with these attas, “became chakki ki sabzi, it became part of churma-batti, it became part of the rotis that one was eating. So atta, the flour was not just to make roti, it was also an integral part for making sabzis.”

While the chakki would be deployed regularly, even during non-festive months, it would become a critical appliance in the weeks preceding Diwali when you’d host guests for meals or just evening tea.  It’s not just Diwali though, Madhubala Shah notes that even during Ganesh Chaturthi, she used the flour grinder to make rice flour for her home made modaks.

In some ways, the aata chakki is to the Gujarati household is what the wet grinder to the Tamil family.

If the Coimbatore Wet Grinder was invented by a gentleman deprived of his dosa because of his mother’s backache, the electric aata chakki is merely a modern-day evolution of the traditional grinding stone. But both appliances are intricately linked to the need for fresh ingredients.

Even though they have a longer shelf life than, say, fruits and vegetables, flours can go bad sooner than you can imagine. Take wheat flour for instance. “The grain includes the wheat germ (or the seed embryo that develops into a plant) and the bran, which has oil. Both of those can grow rancid quite fast once they’re ground,” explains Vikram Doctor, a journalist who writes about food and its role in India. “It’s why you need to grind your aata fresh; because it goes bad.” This is true even of the readymade aata which is good for no more than six months or so.

What is true of wheat flour is also true of other pulses and millets. Dr Kurush F Dalal, an archaeologist and a culinary anthropologist says, “A lot of grains degrade when they’re ground. Bajra flour, for instance, must be consumed within seven days of grinding. Grinding flour on a regular basis doesn’t just ensure its fresh but also free of any weevils and bugs. It also ensures that your flour isn’t starchy and falling apart.”

Home economics

Archaeologists have been able to establish the different ways that flour was first milled.

Dalal cites the use of quern stones and then rotary querns, as just two examples of stone-based hand-grinding implements that converted whole grain to flours.

Later, village-based flour mills would grind the grain for those in the area. While the first probably used domestic animals to turn the massive stone wheels, they now rely on electrification. Culinary chronicler Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal sources her flour from a hydroelectric mill, built on the banks of a stream in Dehradun.

Dalal suggests that consumers were probably concerned about adulteration or being given the wrong flour by the local mill, and that led to the introduction of flour mills at home.

Some of the earliest grinders, such as the ones made for Madhubala Shah of Bhavnagar, were custom-made. “Back then, we simply didn’t have any branded options in our town!” she recollects.

Even today, no national brand manufactures the aata chakki. Among the local brands that dominate the market is the Anand-based Milcent. The 78-year-old company that started off as a repair centre for oil engines evolved into manufacturing curd-churning machines before it put out its patented design for the home flour mill for which it is now known.

With six branch offices and more than 850 retail outlets across India, Milcent’s dozen or so aata chakki models are now available all over the country, including in large electronics stores such as Croma.

Milcent’s CEO, HS Barad says, “Our founder Jashbhai Patel invented the aata chakki because he wanted to do good. He observed women in the family, working in twos to churn curd, and developed a machine for a single person to operate.” Having solved that problem, he decided to focus on a flour mill for the home. Barad explains, “The same traditional mill was mechanised. [Patel] inserted a shaft from the bottom and attached a pulley to make a belt-driven mill.”

Seeking authenticity

Just after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the sales of Milcent chakkis saw a spike because it offered the option of getting aata hygienically ground at home instead of at a local flour mill and risk catching the virus.

This is particularly helpful for those with health ailments. For example, Madhubala Shah adds soybeans to her wheat flour, which is a practice her doctor recommended when her husband was diagnosed with cancer. In the years since, she’s continued it saying, “Health is more important than taste, and so I’ve continued.”

Besides its obvious health advantages, the aata chakki also works out to be more economical. According to Dina Thacker, a Mumbai homemaker who buys grain in bulk, grinding her own flour is cheaper. “You end up saving at least 20 percent compared to buying pre-ground atta,” she says

Cleaning an aata chakki can be a task but with more people seeking out authenticity in every aspect of their lives, it may be that home grinders will become more pervasive.

Today, as more and more people opt for specific diets – think gluten-free, keto, etc – the aata chakki offers them the ultimate customisation. We live in a world where the artisanal bakery that mills their own flour gets all the accolades, but in reality, it’s been practiced for centuries. Just ask those that have grown up in houses where it’s a weekly tradition.

Aatish Nath is a Mumbai-based writer who writes about food, music, culture and travel.