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Our own `foreign' fruit salad
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The thorn-ridden jackfruit that is not just consumed as a fruit, but goes into every dish from sambar to kheer, the humble jambosa that comes down in a shower turning the ground beneath purple... A whole lot of fruits have adapted themselves so well to our environs that we hardly remember their "foreign" origin.
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IF YOU cannot bite into a bright red, succulent watermelon, with its juice streaming down your forearms, is it worth living a summer? Imagine rasam without toor dhal and asafoetida seasoning? Of what worth is a festive meal that is not rounded off by betel leaves? Having to wake up to a morning that has no concept of a hot cup of steaming coffee... Oh, what a cruel thought! Aarti without camphor, a frontyard without tulsi, masala dosa without potato-and-onion stuffings... by any stretch of imagination, these things sound most unreasonable.
One might be looked upon with suspicion if it is mentioned that most of the things that are so crucial to our stomach and tongue are actually not ours in origin. Though a majority of these ingredients and fruits were initially rejected by conservative families as "foreign", they came to be accepted gradually when the tummy and the tongue began to crave for them. That asafoetida is Persian, camphor is of Chinese origin, and the chilli, that is so central to Indian cooking, is originally from South America, are facts that can hardly be believed.
Our tongue is so accustomed to feasting on a crunchy jackfruit pappad, pineapple chaat, or a juicy orange that one hardly stops to think where they came from. B.G.L. Swamy, a botanist, who has done extensive research on the origin of plant species and also a leading science writer of Kannada, in his works "Phalashruti" , "Nanna Hotteyalli Dakshina America", and "Hasiru Honnu" (a work that won the Kendra Sahitya Academy award), unravels interesting details about these various plant species that we have assumed to be our own. One will be shocked to know that almost 90 per cent of the vegetables and 80 per cent of the fruits we eat are not Indian. They have come to us at various points in time, of course, because of human effort. Along with these came hundreds of weeds too!
The tempting red watermelon is of Egyptian origin. From there it is supposed to have journeyed to North and Central parts of Africa.
The Moghuls brought it to India from Turkey. In fact, there is a reference to this fruit as "Sweet, crisp" in Jahangirnama. B.G.L. Swamy also mentions how the extravagant Moghul durbar stored watermelon juice in ice that they would bring from the Himalayas, to serve it cool. Even an ice-cream is no match to the cool watermelon. In fact, in very hot countries, to keep the head cool, they use the watermelon as a cap in summer.
When oranges appeared in Europe in the 16th Century, they were originally thought to be of Chinese origin. But this citrus fruit has a rather obscure history. While it is said that most citrus fruit trees originated in the region encompassing South Asia, it is also said that the modern fruit species probably originated in China. However, the location of the orange is controversial. Does it really matter where it comes from as long as we have lovely oranges and "orange peel gojju" to tingle the tongue?
The round musk melon and the shaded, oval-shaped variety of the same fruit (locally known as minake hannu) are natives of Africa. Musk melon soaked in coconut milk and jaggery with a sprinkle of elaichi powder is a favourite coolant made in most traditional homes. It might seem far fetched when we hear that this fruit found its way into our kitchen from some remote forest in Africa.
No festivity can begin without a string of mango leaves on the door frame and no summer can be complete without mango. It is said that the mango is a native of South Asia, especially Burma and East India. But, B.G.L. Swamy says that it is rather difficult to identify when the wild variety got transformed into the cultivated variety. He, however, feels that it was only with the coming of Moghuls and Portuguese that the mango acquired its present status. They opened up new dimensions in Indian horticulture.
The native mangoes had a large seed and little pulp. With their expertise in grafting they were able to extract all the positive qualities that were latent in this plant species. In fact, it was the first fruit tree to be grafted. While Malgova, Alphonso, and Dayas are the Portuguese varieties, Rumani, Peer Pasand, and Banganapalli are the Moghul varieties. These varieties continue to be the most popular ones.
The jackfruit is believed to be indigenous to the rainforests of Western Ghats of India. It is often planted in central and eastern Africa, and is fairly popular in Brazil and Surinam.
B.G.L. Swamy identifies four entry points for these various plant species. From the south-eastern direction, a number of plants like yam, bottle gourd, and the jambosa had come to India as a result of trade between Malaysia and Palinisia. The Moghuls brought flowering plants and trees from Persia and Turkey in the 16th Century. Babar, the first Moghul king, was so fond of gardening, that during his regime gardening came to be recognised as an art. He is also said to have brought expert gardeners to India from Iran and Turan. With Indo-Chinese relationship gaining momentum in the Sixth Century, teams of students and travellers visited India.
This became the reason for various species entering from the north-east. In the course of the Portuguese discovering the route to Brazil, a lot of fruits and flowers came to India.
These are days when we talk of territorial and cultural invasions. How then do we understand these delightful, "fruity" invasions? We have indigenised them, made them part of our culture. So much so, the famous nursery rhyme "Nanjanagudina rasabale, tandihe kodagina kittale" talks of just every variety of fruit as belonging to our own land.
DEEPA GANESH
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