Food was never scarce at this household; nor was it wasted. Aaya always made sure that everything bought for the kitchen was monitored and found acceptable.
She made weekly trips to the market and if we were good, we accompanied her on these market trips. The Kudhirai vandi would be called and aaya, one or two of us and a whole lot of bags would go in. The trip was short and took us to the vegetable market, much like the ulavar sandhais you see nowadays. There, ayah selected the freshest greens, greenest vegetables, lushest tomatoes, biggest potatoes and brought them back in big cloth bags.
On arrival at the house, ayah took them to the courtyard, took out her small cot, filled water in a knee high bucket, wash the vegetables in streaming water and sort them out in small piles. We would carry them to the kitchen to maami or whoever was in charge and then they were stored in small baskets. Imagine feeding a small army of around ten to twelve people everyday!
Fruits, like mondampalam, kalkandu vazhalai, malai palam and the ever famous rasthali were her favourites among bananas. The mondampalam is a big plaintain fruit and small stomachs could never manage one full fruit, so we invariably got small two to three inch long cut pieces. We usually were trained to peel away the thick underskin of the fruit. It was sticky, but tasty and those of us who have had this training, till date relish this and retain this habit, much to the confoundment of the newcomers in the family.
Thaatha's favourites were the kalkandu vazhai and the malai palam...green, sweet and much sought after.
While these three varieties were rationed out, the rasthali was always available for hungry stomachs and greedy mouths. It would be bought in a huge bunch, proabably with fifty or sixty palams and was hung in the small room near aaya's cot. It was a favourite spot when one played hide and seek, because while waiting to be found out, one could always do it in quite contentment, on a banana high.
Aayah also bought water melons, sweet melons, sakkaravalli kilangu, kutchi kilangu ( which is usually the fat kilangu),panang kilangu, nungu and the nungu palam. Let me not forget the palapalams.
Water melon was cut into big pieces and shared out with all. Thaatha always had it, in small, delicately cut pieces, served in a beautiful saucer with a small spoon to eat with. Sweet melons were usually crushed with the fingers, sugar added to it and served in dripping consistency. Thaatha did not like this messy concotion and I remember he liked them diced, sugared and served.
Sakkaraivalli kilangu was boiled, the brown skin removed and the boiled kilangu mixed with fresh ghee and sugar and eaten in tight balls, licked one lick at a time. Kutchi kilangu was again boiled and served with sugar.
Nungu was available in straight our of bunches with the three nungus in the fruit shell, ready to be scooped out, licked, slurped and swallowed sometimes whole. Thaatha had it flavoured with elaichi and sugar, refrigerated and served. Nungu palam was the overripe nungu smoked and delicately charred on the outside and beautifully golden yellow inside. It had to be pulled out with the teeth and the stringy bits chewed and chewed , till the golden juice flowed into and out of the mouth. That was a cultivated taste, not popular with many in the family.
Panang Kilangu was the brown, chewey and succulent kilangu boiled into a sweetness that needed no sugar or sweetners
As you can see, this is perhaps why so many in the family have a sweet tooth. If there was nothing sweet, there was always big, chunky white crystal kalkandu, or the dark brown, native karrupatti vellam, on which one could suck for an hour atleast.
Palapalam was a hot favourite in summer along with magoes. It was always there in a pale yellow or richly dark yellow colour in basins filled with these cholais, as they were called. We loved eating them as they were, inspite of aayah's warnings about stomach cramps, because it was a 'choodu' food. For thaatha, it was always served with generous doses of honey which smelt like roses and mango blossoms, since they were from the hives in the thottam.
Mangoes also were there, laid out in sack cloths in small rows and post lunch would always be looked forward to, becuase Chandra maama and the chithis made it a fetish practice of cutting the peel with sharp knives that left behind just a golden globe in the hand and an extraordinarily long rind of the fruit that twirled like a ribbon. Thenceforth, it would be cut and served with honey.
I also distinctly remember them taking out a whole mango, and kneading it into a juicy fruit, which would be punched open at the top and the juicy pulp drunk straight from the skin.
For us kids, there was also candied nellikai stored in the netted cupboard. Fresh small gooseberries were there for those wanted something strong, hot and perky. With salted chilli powder that was a perfect foil to all the sweet things that one fed on after lunch.
I realise now that it was a house of fullness and choicest fruits. It was a house of discerning tastes, and one still sees them in the chithis and maamas. They truly deserve to say, ' Antha kaalathile...' and not be wrong by a mile. God bless the elders who made such an overwhelming memory of smells, tastes and textures, alive and rich.
