Bite On This

India is the largest producer of limes and lemons in the world with an estimated production of three million tonnes per annum. All through the year, markets are flush with the fruit. In contrast to other cash crops that require high input costs, farmers going organic can earn high returns on the lemon.

So when life gives you lemons, stock up on them—add them to salads or infuse them in water overnight, include them in your beauty routine or scrub grimy dishes or surfaces, use as a humidifier or add with the whites in your laundry.

And when you’re done squeezing the juice and grating the zest, don’t throw away the peels. Use them to make natural cleaners for your home. Stuff that’s good for you and the environment.

In episode 12 of Bite On This, you’ll hear about these and some less known uses of lemons.

Jackfruit, which is native to South India, is grown in tropical regions around the world, but it holds a special place in the hearts of Indians. Unlike other trees which require intensive care, the jackfruit requires little effort. It grows on its own, without much fuss, and produces fruits throughout the year.

The jackfruit, of course, was being cultivated in India around 3,000 to 6,000 years ago. With nearly 1,400 tonnes being cultivated every year, India is one of the largest producers.

In 1498, when the Portuguese arrived on the shores of erstwhile Calicut, they saw the fruit, which was then locally known as ‘chakka’. They called it ‘jaca’, recording in the diaries of travellers, as one of the wonders of the East.

Later, with British colonisation, it was anglicised to ‘jackfruit’.

Its wonders remain unchanged to this day. “In the town of Panruti, people make sabzis from jackfruit. It gives a meaty texture that you don’t otherwise get in vegetarian food.”

That’s food traveller and historian, Rakesh Raghunathan.

Panruti in Tamil Nadu is often considered to be India's “jackfruit paradise”. There is much demand for the fruit from this town, and no part of the fruit goes to waste.

In India, it is states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu that have professed their love for the Jackfruit by declaring it as their official state fruit. Karnataka even has a proverb: ‘Eat the jackfruit when you’re hungry, the mango when you’re full.’

But I’m told that the love for the jackfruit in God’s Own Country, Kerala, is unrivalled, where it’s not just any other fruit—it’s an emotion. Even the seeds are quite the rage—they are either cooked or stir-fried—for a delicious, nutritious snack.

“I have to add that I’m a Malayali and for Malayalis, jackfruit is not just something that’s part of your diet. It has a lot of cultural significance.”

That’s Lekshmi Priya, a former writer at The Better India. Earlier this year, she wrote a viral article in defence of the jackfruit!

However, for all the record-breaking production in our country, there are reports that almost Rs 2,000 crore worth of jackfruit goes to waste every year in Karnataka alone.

Sree Padre believes that there is a lot of demand for the fruit, but it is not met by supply. He's the Executive Editor of Adike Patrike, (which means ‘arecanut newspaper’), a platform through which he has been advocating the jackfruit movement for the last ten years or so.

“Farmers are still unaware that it is a profitable fruit. They are still used mainly for household consumption. The mass wastage was a primary motivation and we are letting it rot. That’s how the movement began.”

A farmer by profession and a journalist by obsession, he’s Kerala’s global ambassador for jackfruit. His magazine carries information and articles for its 1,00,000 readers. There are inspiring stories of farmers and entrepreneurs benefitting from the jackfruit, mentions of events promoting the fruit and of course, its health benefits.

He also sends out a newsletter and administers groups of jackfruit lovers on social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp where he shares information and recipes.

Check out the full episode.

When the mercury dips low, we Indians have solutions at home, right in our kitchens. Honey and ginger drops for cough and cold; ghee for nourishment; and almond milk for overall immunity.

But there’s one element that we use for nearly everything--in cooking, for taste and flavour; as an antiseptic on injuries; and a brightening agent in our beauty routine

Haldi or turmeric.

Did you know that Haldi has been used in India for more than 4,000 years? Not just that, our country produces almost all of the world’s Haldi. We are not far behind in terms of consumption. According to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, India consumes almost 80 per cent of its Haldi crop.

And all that cultivation is far from easy.

Farmers have to slog in the fields for days, just to get the fields ready for planting.

“Planting one acre of land needs 25-30 labourers to work all day. It is time-consuming and labour-intensive work, which requires the workers to be in a bent posture all day. It causes them severe back pain,” says Indrajit Balvir Singh. He’s an engineer who creates innovative agricultural implements in Aurangabad. He tells me that cultivating Haldi is quite a back-breaking job.

The innovator in Indrajit got to work. It took him three years, and in 2009, he came up with Guru, an adjustable planter that promised to make Haldi cultivation less cumbersome.

Haldi, it seems, is the Indian go-to for everything.

And it came to us so naturally that we never gave it much thought until western influencers and international media called it a superfood.

The glass of warm turmeric milk or Haldi doodh that Indians consumed painstakingly when they fell sick or got injured, got a makeover. It goes by “golden milk” or “turmeric latte” in the USA and Australia.

The Guardian even called it “2016’s drink of choice”!

“When the wellness movement started, people started becoming more aware, that’s the time that turmeric started gaining prominence,” says Meenakshi Bhardwaj. She sells natural and organic Haldi under her brand Aranyam Naturals in Delhi.

She differentiates between different kinds of Haldi, and also specifies their usage. She’s confident that with modern medicine realising its value, people are also waking up to its benefits. Under Aranyam Naturals, she sells lakadong turmeric, which has been found to have higher curcumin content, a compound that has anti-cancer properties.

We hear from a scientist who validates this property of Haldi. Ajaikumar K is a professor and scientist at the Cancer Biology Laboratory, IIT Guwahati. And for the past 18 years, his lab has been studying how natural products like fruits, vegetables and spices can prevent and treat chronic diseases.

“Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive cancers in the world. If there are 100 patients with pancreatic cancer, 50 per cent of them will die in six months and at least 90 per cent will die in a year.

So go ahead, add some spice in your life!

Check out the full episode!

Tempering is a basic step in Indian cooking. Adding deep-fried whole spices, chillies, chopped ginger and garlic to capture their individual and collective flavours.

And how does all of this happen? Well, enter any Indian kitchen and among the prized spices or mixes you will find the answer - a jar of ghee!

Originally, it was a sign of prosperity. And it had to be made at home.

But sometime during the mid-80s, it began to be replaced by vegetable oils. Those who could not afford desi ghee, cooked in the Dalda brand of vegetable ghee.

I’m told that families would hide their cans of Dalda from visiting relatives or neighbours because the presence of these cans suggested that they were not a khata peeta gharana, a prosperous home.

“If you look at our grandmothers and their traditional eating practices, they have never replaced ghee. If you look at their skin, hair, bone and spine health, they are way better than us, even if we are half their age, because what’s missing in our lives in ghee!” says Jinal Shah.

She is a diet and exercise consultant based in Mumbai. Jinal also emphasises the strength-enhancing capabilities of ghee; for this reason, it is given to expectant and new mothers in generous amounts. It’s also a mandatory element in the diet of athletes.

In India, ghee is more than a superfood. It is considered to be one of the most balanced ingredients that enhances the equilibrium of the mind and the body. It’s also a half-a-billion-dollar industry, witnessing a growth of 11.1 per cent between 2011 and 2018.

We also hear from Pintu Suvagiya who quit his corporate career to pursue beekeeping, grow organic vegetables, and make natural dairy products. He sells them under his label ‘The Nature’s Way’ from his farm in Rajkot, Gujarat. Pintu tells us, “Commercial manufacturers often make ghee from malai or cream obtained from milk instead of curd. This type is faster to make and gives better milk to ghee ratio as compared to the bilona variety. But at the same time, it cannot be digested easily.”

So go ahead, put that spoonful of ghee on your dosa and rice and have a delicious time at it!

Check out the full episode!

Cooking is what enabled the evolution of the human race and contributes to its survival. But over time, we stopped eating purely for sustenance; food also had to taste well and look great.

Today, in its highest form, food must appeal to all five senses.

So in this episode of ‘Bite On This’ we ask the question—is food art or science?

For art, we are joined by iconic chef and hotelier Virender Singh Datta. In a career spanning 50 years, he has held important positions in some of the most well-known hotels in India and abroad.

He says, “Cooking was always an art. If you give the same ingredients to two different cooks, they will come up with very different variations of a dish.”

As for the science, we speak to Ganesh Bagler, a professor and scientist at the Centre for Computational Biology, IIIT Delhi. His lab has been researching the unique elements of Indian cuisine that make it so delicious.

He says, “Cooking and culinary art are considered generally as artistic endeavours and rightfully so, but computational gastronomy quantifies various aspects of food and cooking, by integrating data and application of computational techniques, like statistical analysis, pattern mining, machine learning, etc.”

We also hear from two youngsters, making food art, literally!

Shilpa Mitha makes food miniatures with clay under ‘Sueno Souvenir’ and Oorjitha Dogiparthi uses all kinds of papers for food miniatures under ‘Oorugami’.

Check out the full episode!

In episode 4 of Bite On This, we catch up with Bhavna, a food blogger based in Sydney, Australia. She talks about her love of simple, home-cooked Indian food, about how it fills your stomach and nourishes your soul.

For over ten years, Bhavna has been blogging about food, sharing recipes, memories, and thoughts around food. She's now taking this passion to a more professional level by building a brand that will allow her to host people and feed them her food, organise cooking classes, the works!

We agreed that Indian food is special and deserves the effort.

But then again, food preferences are so subjective, and they form such a major part of our identities. Would it be fair to say that Indian food is more unique than other cuisines of the world?

Ganesh Bagler, a professor and scientist at the Centre for Computational Biology, IIIT Delhi, talks about research from his lab which found the specific elements in Indian cuisine that make it unique. They studied thousands of research articles and recipes across the length and breadth of the country to arrive at this finding.

Listen to the full episode to know all about it!

‘Pachadi’ in Telugu, ‘chutney’ in Hindi, ‘dip’ or ‘sauce’ in the Queen’s English, few Indians can resist a freshly ground condiment. 

Episode 3 of Bite On This is about ‘chutney’, an almost mandatory accompaniment to most South Indian meals.

Aparna Parinam has authored the book, 'Chutneys: Adding Spice to Your Life', which features as many as 50 recipes of different kinds of chutneys! "They add zing to life!" she says.

Bengalurean Shyamala ticks off different kinds of chutneys, saying that they can be ready in ten minutes or so. Don't agree? We wouldn't blame you because it wasn't always so easy. Most of us still have and know of grandmothers who insist on using the mortar and pestle to pound different masalas to make their famous chutneys. The introduction of the Sumeet electric mixer grinder, one that could stand the vigours of Indian grinding, was a game-changer.

Spicy, sour, tangy and sweet, the different flavours of chutneys burst in your mouth—and perk up your everyday meal. And they last long, if appropriately refrigerated. 

'If' being the focus keyword.

Listen to Aakarsh Amnur, an architect and urban management professional who's working towards an affordable and sustainable cooling solution for street food vendors, because the chutney is what makes all the difference!

All these solutions for a nation that loves its chutneys, that was even invaded for its spices!