E-PaperA note on the issue: When the sun shines
Communities across India have unique ways of preserving foods for earning a livelihood, warding off scarcity, ensuring nutrition and adding flavour to meals
About 15 years ago, when I was in Kallidaikurichi, on the banks of the Tamirabarani in Tamil Nadu, to do a story on the hometown of some of the state’s biggest industrial families, I had to bypass narrow streets that were covered end-to-end with appalams (papads) drying in the sun. Women had hand-flattened and sold them for years, making the town synonymous with appalams, until machines took over and turned them out faster.
Also read: The pickle platter of India
“As children, it was a game to hop, skip and run through the streets, without stepping on the drying appalams even as the women shouted at us,” the elderly gentleman acting as my guide had said. “Their appalams were perfect, moru-moru,” he said, using the unique Tamil term that captures taste as well as the combined texture of crispy and crumbly. Planning and editing this week’s cover story, in a tangential way, brought back memories of that summer day, reminding me that even as we complain about the heat in urban islands, sunshine means pickling, preserving, fermenting and extending the life of foods for a rainy day.
Communities across India have unique ways of preserving foods for reasons that include earning a livelihood, warding off scarcity, ensuring nutrition, and adding flavour to meals, as our story on pickling traditions explains. Pickles, especially, are linked to culinary histories of individual families, which gives India a mind-boggling variety of these accompaniments. Home chefs are now pairing pickles, whether sweet, sour or spicy, with cheeses and wines to widen their appeal.
On a similar note of bringing new appreciation to a thing often underrated, we have a story on the diminishing community of pen lovers who are trying to popularise fountain pens. Notwithstanding my deep hatred of fountain pens—stemming from too many spills on white uniforms and prized furniture—niche hobbies and committed fans always make for a delightful read. And in keeping with the idea of obsessions, we’ve curated a selection of beautiful objects in time for Star Wars Day, today.
Write to the editor at shalini.umachandran@htlive.com
@shalinimb
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