PANAJI EARLY MORNING PAVEMENT MARKET JOYS…. highlights currently includes fresh kokum fruit and cashew apples to turn into thirst-quenching sharbats to beat the prematurely early summer time heat. To make deliciously mild kokum water to drink just drop one or two sliced kokum fruit into a jug of water and chill in the fridge…watch the magic happen!
By Tara Narayan
Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! – A variety food column
THE weather has been like a steaming furnace and I wonder how everyone is getting on with their daily living indoors and outdoors! I’m so grateful that I’ve got into the habit of stepping out early mornings to finish my marketing chores, although there’s never a day when I do not dream that one of these days I will walk into a chak-a-chak clean Panaji market inside and outdoors. Most civic corporations clean up public places early mornings or late nights so that shoppers have an easier time during shopping hours. I am sorry beautiful Panaji market continues to suffer from apathy and neglect although I am sure a lot of public funds are wasted on it and on meaningless celebrations by city fathers!
From the looks and feel of it do you feel springtime has made a hasty retreat and we’re bang into summertime with the flowering trees blooming away in a hurry – see the African tulips, laburnums, rain trees, queen’s trees, etc, I even spy a gulmohr here and there in a hurry to bloom jhat phat. Post-swearing in of old “new” Goa government prices too are soaring, a plate of batatvada is Rs30 as also a plate of kanda bhaji at Vinod Vadapauwallah down town Panaji market. Prices up most everywhere and I keep telling myself I must not time pass eating out here and there.
I paid Rs10 for a creamy green round egg plant this morning and at home found just too many seeds in it! For some reason I like to remove all the stony seeds before cooking in the case of aubergines, brinjal, egg plant, don’t ask me why. The big royal purple aubergine is worth slicing into inch thick roundels, dust in salt, turmeric and ajwain seeds and shallow fry in coconut or olive oil till lightly golden. Serve as you wish.
ACTUALLY, all of this week I’ve been feeling like why do I have to cook to eat! Once again I’m dreaming of switching over to a singularly raw food eating lifestyle to cure myself of a myriad eating sins of omission and commission…this is because I’ve been catching up with reading some of my health conscious journals from abroad. See how folk are successfully seeking health in raw and mostly raw and semi-foodie diets – by now there’s a perennial on-going raw food revolution on, that is after vegan, plant-based and vegetarian switchovers – plant-based eating is now promoted exclusively by my famous friends John and Ocean Robbins who’re leading the Food Revolution Network majorly out in the US of A and around the world on Internet.
In a newsletter I hear from Ocean Robbins that a plant -based movement for health is being pushed by A-list celebrities like Ariana Grande, former presidents , Olympic athletes, Hollywood royalty and more and I hear even Google employees are offered plant-based meals courtesy company Kaiser Permanente. Plant-based eating is a booming trend. Hey, there’re a global rise in vegan and plant-based eating and it is not just a fat, even Arnold Schwarzenegger is pro-plants eating because research shows that chronic conditions like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, brain fog and obesity can be prevented and reversed just by eating right.
It’s not easy for the meat-eating nations to turn to vegan and vegetarian and raw foodie eating habits! But health is more important than wealth and I suggest you catch the 2022 Food Revolution Summit being conducted online by John and Ocean Robbins and Comkpany. It’s happening later in April.
SOME nuggets of information to think over: Do you know that banana and avocado blended has the closest ratio of fat and sugar as breast milk? If you thinking of baby food be informed that dates, avocado, carrot, banana are great foods for babies. Although of course breast milk is the only super food for the first 13 month plus. Babies are actually ready for food only after they’re a year old when their guts are ready to digest food, make if it six months at least if you must…generally speaking this is to say don’t go pushing adult foods into four to six months old babies’ mouths, because quite simply their intestines aren’t fully developed yet.
In fact, La Leche League says don’t push complicated foods into your babies before they’ve crossed their first birthday. Well, this bit is for those who’re in their baby making years.
THEN I intrigued by a Dr Sebi I’m reading up who tells me, “eat fruit for electricity, vegetables for grounding, herbs for healing, nuts and seeds for body building.” Also, we may know this but for repeat value include turmeric in your diet for protection against UV-A damage, allergies, cholesterol, brain health and what do you know — turmeric is anti-depression too. I try and get shudh turmeric for cooking purposes in my sabzi and dal frys, kichadi, but still have to persuade myself to drink turmeric infused water for better health values…you must know drinking golden turmeric latte has become all the rage abroad in health-conscious circles!
The point is nowadays the best organically cultivated things are exported abroad for premium price returns while we in India suffer! Despite the Vocal for Local movements and local organic farming weekend markets…but do patronise local and fresh first and eat less and less out of cans, boxes, cartons – if you want to eat to live! Do try to avoid foods packed in plastics please. Most of us are victims of drugs and surgeries to control diabetes, heart disease, cancer.
Irritable bowel syndrome is a major cause of concern in India where even amongst the poorer classes living in slums children are perennially at the mercy of water and quality food shortages and deprivations. They too suffer along with the rich who know little about how to eat right to keep body beautiful working on lubricated wheels or so to speak. The better the maintenance, the better the systems of body beautiful work to reward us in the long run.
In the rat race of life we forget so much that is primary and demands we respect mother earth, so as not to stray too far away from Her bosom and womb which keeps all life on earth nourished enough to stay alive and kicking. What is not important at all is worth letting go.
TO move on I was tickled to see these almost translucent smooth green cucumbers in the market last week – the vendor called them “pani kakdi” or “water cucumbers.” I guessed the cucumbers are courtesy hydroponic farming which many young farmers are taking an interest in urban India. In this kind of soil-less farming along a rigged up system, only nutrient rich water is used to grow veggies, lettuces, fruit, many of our salad crunchies.
Hydroponic farming is still controversial and some say it’s more expensive, but if done with patience it can be highly profitable. Some badly worked out hydroponic farms turn into disasters so it is important you go into all the nitty and gritty of it before venturing into such farming – although one hears of all these terrace hydroponic farms which so many restaurants out in the country of the west are investing in – grow your own food and cut costs! I hear hydroponic farming is great for growing cilantro (green coriander), all kinds of wonderful lettuces, greens like spinach, varieties of peppers, mint, cucurbits like cucumber, bay leaves and more. Check it out. Hydrophonic agriculture is going places.
Finally, this is to say mangoes, mangoes greenseason and there’re bumper crop coming into local markets from wild “ghoteche” mangoes for making tangy curries to the green mango varieties for pickle making. Prices are high though, bargain a bit if you’re buying in bulk. Good-luck. I’ve got choonda on my mind, the Guju favourite green mango marmalade but spiced up not sugary sickly sweet.
Choonda can be delicately flavoured with saffron-cardamom flavouring, or cinnamon-clove-cardamom flavouring; my mother’s traditional sun-cooked choonda was flavoured with roasted cumin seeds and red chilli powder. Today there is choonda and choonda – make cooked mango choonda if you like. Choonda or “chundo” just translates into grated green mango primarily. You may turn this into yummy-licious pickles of your choice to go with small and big meals. On a bad day I will relish my chundo atop toast or on cream crackers! Chundo and cheddar cheese is a nice combo in sandwiches. Enjoy!