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muttai


noun unparched maize corn, still soft and usually still on the cob, boiled and eaten as a vegetable: *They sell that yellow sweet corn in the supermarket, but I think the old-style white corn makes better muttais. –LES MURRAY, 2002.

Contributor's comments: I remember driving along the road from Crowdy Head to Taree one summer and someone told me about Muttai. I'm told the word is from India - would love to know how it got to the Taree area.

Contributor's comments: Known by this name since childhood specifically in the Macleay Valley.

Contributor's comments: This is a word used by Tamils in South India. It refers to a lolly or a sweet of any sort. Furthermore, it is also used to describe the colour shocking pink which is called 'muttai pink'.

Contributor's comments: Seems to be a singularity of the Macleay river; My mother and grandmother used the term but I don't know anyone on, say the Richmond, who is familiar with it.

Contributor's comments: Sweet corn - used by my grandfather who lived near Port Macquarie and grew it: "What's for tea?" "We've got muttai."

Contributor's comments: [Walcha NSW informant] Sweet corn on the cob: "I wouldn't mind some mutti for tea tonight."

Contributor's comments: Muttai is well a well known term in the Manning River region of NSW. It refers to young "cow corn" eaten boiled, or best cooked over ashes in a fuel stove.

Contributor's comments: Mutti was the common name for young corn on the cob in Bulahdelah when I was a lad.

Contributor's comments: Muti or Mutti: Corn on the cob still enclosed in the green sheaf as it was picked. Just when referring to the fresh corn cob.

Contributor's comments: Muttai is a corn flour paste savoury or sweet deep fried usuallly from extruded corn paste to form various shapes. The term Seeni muttai pink is a colloquilism used by Sri Lankans, South Indians and many other migrants of basically Indian ethnic groups.