Ask anyone from Bihar about summer, and sattu will come up within a minute.
Roasted gram, ground fine
Sattu is flour made from roasted gram (chana). Because the gram is roasted before grinding, it’s ready to eat with nothing more than water, which is exactly why it has been a staple for so long.
In a glass
In summer, many people drink sattu sharbat: sattu stirred into cold water with salt, lemon, and sometimes chopped onion, green chilli and roasted cumin. Others make it sweet with jaggery or sugar.
In litti, and on the road
Sattu is also the spiced filling inside litti, Bihar’s best-known dish. And it travels: a packet of sattu has long been the meal of choice on long journeys, ready wherever there is water.