Palm Jaggery

It is a type of jaggery(sugar) produced locally from a special type of palm, Palmyra Palm. Found abundant in Palakkad district in Kerala, made famous by O.V. Vijayan’s masterpiece novel ‘The Legends of Khasak’.
This sugar could be consumed by the diabetic and the kids with no side effects of white sugar, says folklore.

Small cuts are made into the head portion of the palm and the sap is collected. This is used as liquor and is heated and made into jaggery which is supposed to have medicinal qualities. Jaggery contains a lot of iron and other minerals.

I bought some from India. This type of sugar comes as solid blocks, so every time you need it, you would have to shave thin slices and then heat them which is time consuming.

So what I do is, pound them into pieces,


add 1 cup of water


for 1 kilo of sugar and boil it.



When every piece is dissolved, boil it for 5 more minutes stirring continuously in low flame until it becomes a caramel consistency. Do not forget to strain the liquid.

Store it in refrigerator. Add a teaspoon to black coffee. It is called karipetti kaappi. That's coffee with a whole new meaning.

Tea-poetry

Ever wondered where those tooth fairies and little elves have tea? Ever dreamed endlessly watching the rain pour down heavily holding a hot cup of tea? Ever longed for a place where you could get drunk in TEA? Then, come with me to Peter Celia Street at Fort Cochin, Kerala to a dreamy tea spot called, ah surprise "Teapot".

The ambiance of this little tea-poetry is to die for. Wooden cartons which were used to transport Tea are refurbished as tiny little tables.

Old tea cups reborn as wind chimes decorating the entrance doors. A large wide tea bush with a glass top serves as a table for five. Teapots of various sizes and shades and materials, some hung from the ceiling, some arranged on the sills. A clock that strikes T's.


Large hats used by workers at the tea plantations to protect themselves from the sun decorate the walls. Tea paintings, Tea stories, Tea sale prints on jute bags -- you dream it, they have them all. They have painstakingly made a wide range of collection of all kinds of tea paraphernalia which would take you hours to finish swooning over, of course over a cup of tea, a fifteen different varieties. The walls are painted in mustard, or you could say, could be a tea stain. :)

There are not many tea spots, thumping their chests proudly displaying the true tea spirit in Kerala, though tea is available easily than water at small shacks to big hotels. Teapot tries to fill that void and does it with élan. Quizzed the owner, Sanjay Damodaran, of the brainwave behind the tiny tables and that simple man said, "You know I wanted something easy to lift and move".

Many people have fallen in love with the place. There is a guy who donated his tea pot collections, a poet from New york who churned a poem for this place, people from all over the World disguised as tourists waiting to have that perfect cup of tea at this dreamy hang-out.

I ordered for a samosa which tasted too North Indian for me(pardon me for being divisive, but about food my friends I don't lie) and a Teapot Special tea, that cost me 30 and 40 India rupees respectively.

(Many thanks to the ace photographer Thulasi Kakkat for the photographs while I was enjoying my tea)

Let them eat Bt Brinjal?

The infamous 'Let them eat cake' was never uttered, says historians, rather that was the impression given to the peasants by the French royal family and the extravagant imprudent queen Marie Antoinette.

But India's Environmental Minister, Jairam Ramesh and his team is conspicuously trying hard to push Bt Brinjal into the Indian agricultural community even with many Indian states rejecting the GEAC approval for the same. Brinjal originated in India and we might soon lose the natural seeds to the genetically modified seeds, if Bt Brinjal is slated to cultivate commercially.

I am no tree hugging environmentalist though I grow most of my vegetables without any pesticides and chemicals at home and plant trees at every inch on the fallen sky. I prefer organic any day, not for the fad but for health reasons and simply because I can afford to. India needed a Green Revolution for self sufficiency of food. In due course, we destroyed our soil with the rampant reckless usage of pesticides and eating meat is much safer in India than a vegetable these days. Now we are again trying the same with the genetically modified crops. We are still suffering from the environmental impacts of the Green Revolution, but surely environment takes a back seat compared to eradicating hunger. But now that we are self sufficient in food cultivation and can afford to have a system of safe and organic foods, why is the current Indian Government adamant on introducing the GM crops?

Genetically modified crops in simple terms is introducing certain gene to the seeds, so that the crop become resistant to certain diseases and farmers can eventually cut down the use of pesticides. These are different from hybrids where two naturally occurring seeds or plants are mixed to create a new one. Here, it is altering the DNA of the seed and a new gene is introduced. Sounds scary right? Wait until you hear about the Pusztai affair.

Árpád Pusztai, considered by many to be the leading expert on GM foods, was silenced with threats of a lawsuit after he unexpectedly discovered that rats fed an experimental GM food developed immune system damage and other serious health problems in just ten days. Pusztai later reviewed an industry-sponsored study and found that seven of forty rats fed a GM crop died within two weeks; others developed stomach lesions. The crop was approved without further tests. Smith, Jeffrey M. 2003. Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating.

European Union, Australia, Japan, some African countries have already rejected the GM crops for lack of clear evidence of food safety. So, we Indians should be the guinea pigs of this new food revolution? There are already strange health complaints by farmers who cultivated Bt Cotton, another GM crop and even people who stay near such farms are complaining of strange symptoms. Why is that these data is not looked into? What did we do to rectify these health complaints? Bt Brinjal is promoted by Mahyco Monsanto biotech, a joint venture between Hyderabad-based Mahyco and US-based Monsanto, along with University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharawad, and Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore.

The strange part of all this is why cant we get the labels on GM crops? US is adamant it wont label it's crop and says European Union should not too, since it violates the trade agreement? Why should we not let the consumer know how and where this crop was cultivated? What is harm in that and why not let us choose? We all know when multinational corporations have their say and when studies are sponsored by them, a lot of data gets hidden and what they want in business is what their scientists come up with.

There are two sides to any story and there are a lot of scientists on the other camp claiming genetically modified crops is perfectly safe for human consumption. Whom do we believe? Which study do we take in? and why Brinjal when we don't even have a Brinjal scarcity in India? Are we just apprehensive of a new technology?