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Jun 3

Pucker up : The goodness of gooseberry in your diet – The Hindu

Diet Comments Off on Pucker up : The goodness of gooseberry in your diet – The Hindu

Shall I send you some nellikai? The question triggers memories of my paatis home in Mysuru. Hot June, vacation time, and as the rest of the house slumbers, my playmate Uma and I head to the gooseberry tree with low-hung branches where we pick the light green berries, pretend they are vegetables and cook with them using our Chennapatna toy kitchen set.

We giggle as we watch each others faces pucker at the tartness, but that does not deter us. Older cousins have taught us well and we quickly chase the gooseberry down with a tumbler of water. We marvel at the sweet taste in our mouth and go aaaaah.

For the sake of nostalgia alone, I buy the nellikai (called amla in the North). After deliberation with my mother (who suggests sweet morabba) we finally decide to make it into thokku a healthier and the less ambitious choice. This, of course, is followed by nellikai talk with several friends on WhatsApp.

In the know

Latha Anantharaman harvests nellikai from her farm near Palakkad, and bottles them in brine. On hot days, she dashes into her garden, picks leaves from the ajwain plant, plucks Kandhari chillies and grinds them all with coconut and the homegrown gooseberry. She adds curd to it for a refreshing, healthy raita.

Murabba

Her family recipes of pickles and even supari made of gooseberry have sheltered them from the demonic summer loo winds of summer, Smita Shakargaye from Bhopal is convinced. Smita, who makes her own papads and pickles, says one of her favourites is wedges of berry spiced with black salt, cumin, pepper and sugar and sundried into a digestive supari. Bengaluru-based Usha Girish shares a morabba recipe (box).

Sreedevi Lakshmi Kutty in Coimbatore, sends me organic gooseberries sourced from her farmer friend Manju Ilango, who grows them in a 30-acre organic farm at Thalavadi in Erode district. I wish more people would consider making jams, pickles, juices and powders with them, she says, Our kids should be as familiar with nellikai as they are with oranges or apples.

The drought-resistant gooseberry is one produce that ticks all the boxes of being local, therefore sustainable, and of course great for boosting immunity, says Dr Abhilash Anand of Maitreyi Vedic Village at Aliyar on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border. He is the managing director and chief Ayurveda physician there.

Thokku

There are endless benefits, if used wisely. In Ayurveda it is used to restore balance in the body, boost metabolism and rejuvenate organs. It de-toxes. he says. The gooseberry can be a part of ones daily diet, but in moderation, he cautions. In rare cases, it may lead to acidity.

According to gerontologist Dr Rahul Padmanabhan, Vitamin C does complement the immunity mechanism in our bodies. It helps prevent and fight infections.

The season for gooseberry is from April to August and some of the best berries are harvested now, in May and June, says Manju. She is sad that she has not been able to visit her farm this year. Our manager there says the harvest is bountiful and the boughs of the trees are sagging with the weight of the fruits. In the good years we have harvested thousands of kilograms.

Ironically, says Manju, there are few takers for something that grows so profusely here. We should use the nellikai a lot more instead of chasing expensive supplements and unseasonal and exotic alternatives. We should be bottling it and pickling it. Whatever we do with our mangoes, can be done with gooseberry.

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Pucker up : The goodness of gooseberry in your diet - The Hindu

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