The untended fields and the warm and dry summer have combined to provide a splendid breeding-ground for the swarms of locusts.

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Whether it is avarai uttakka - local beans cooked with potato, tomato, onions, garlic and tempered with mustard seeds, or sandagai - roasted tomato sauteed with small onion, garlic and coconut ground to a fine paste - the "masala made carefully after dry-roasting 17 spices and not bought off the shops" is the key, Indira says.

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Dry weather has prevailed since the weekend at Pilton, so the parched ground is like concrete in places - pretty tricky to hammer tent pegs in, I'd wager!

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