I have just been
informed that a humble veggie that we were forced to consume and one
which was associated with frugality - even poverty - in my
childhood, has now become the new superfood.
It is known as
Moringa Oleifera in botany. In Tamil (“Tamizh” in Tamizh) it is
the humble Murungai Kai; the Latin Moringa doubtless derives from the
Tamizh “Murungai”, “kai” being the generic Tamil (?) suffix
for any green vegetable which is not a root. Roots get their own the
suffix “kizhangu”. If non-Tamil speakers can – and dare -
pronounce it right they can call them whatever they want (“kizangoo”,
which is what I most often hear, just wont do). Given that there is
no known equivalent in any language other than Tamizh (ah ha, it was
coming, wasn't it?) for the sound loosely represented by “zh”,
those that dont speak Tamizh get it wrong. Heck, even the Tams get it
wrong most of the time – they say “kilangu”, or even the
typically Madrasi or Anglo-Indian “Kaing”.
Moringa, I am told,
is a family by itself and thus quite unique. We Tams are quite unique
too: we arguably speak the oldest language, which has no known
progenitor and only a couple of derivatives, with hardly a change
over centuries. The various arguments that the Northerners might
advance to deny us our uniqueness not withstanding (all of which are
specious anyway), we and our Murungai Kai are unique, one of a kind
and very very tasty. Alas I cannot say the same for Tam clothing
sense.
Back to the humble
Moringa.
For the sake of
simplicity and ease of writing I shall use the Latin version Moringa
rather than the Tamizh Murungai Kai in the following paragraphs. This
in no way represents my preference for Latin over Tamizh. Besides,
Moringa sounds very much like how this veggie is colloquially known
in the land of the Tamizh people. Some might quibble that it is a pod
and not a veggie; to them I say botany does not matter when something
tastes as good as this.
Murungai Kai Sambar
is without doubt one of the high points of Tamizh cuisine if not its
most evolved and most subtle expression. This, in English, is Moringa
in a Tamrind-and-Coconut sauce, but that description doesn't even
begin to do justice to what a “Sambar” is. Given that English
Cuisine is an oxymoron it is not surprising that the English language
is inadequate to describe the subtleties of Tamizh cuisine. If I am
permitted to be factually correct but politically incorrect I might
say “Tamizh Brahmin” cuisine (TamBram cuisine for short).
The Sambar, most
often incorrectly pronounced “Sam-burr” by the ignorant
Northerners, does use Tamrind and Coconut as two of its ingredients,
but that's is not all. To call it it a “sauce” is sacrilege,
knowing what the English sauce is all about. This is not the forum
for discussing the culinary intricacies of Sambar, the benefits of
using cold-pressed sesame oil as against a generic “refined”
vegetable oil, or the use or the absence of Fenugreek seeds or a
pinch of Asafoetida; nor for using Tamarind instead of Kokum
(Garcinia Indica) favoured by those from our Western Coast; nor for
singing the praises of a significant regional variation thereof
involving the use of sour “buttermilk”. You just have to accept
it on my authority as one possessed of a subtle palate.
The very popular
Sambar comes in a variety of flavours involving a wide range of
different vegetables from the humble potato to the delightful horse
radish. Once, in England, when shopping for the latter root to make
sambar with, I was countered with a question if I kept horses.
Apparently people there didnt eat radish in any form and I didn't look
like the “horsey” type. I was also asked the same question when I
was shopping for Oats to make breakfast porridge with. Suffice to say
I wasn't the “horse-keeping” type and it showed. I stopped
shopping at that particular supermarket which appeared to favour
horse-owners over normal people.
Moringa is truly the
food of the indigent. It grows on a tree which grows all over the
south of India. The tree gives of itself liberally and its leaves are
also used frequently in our cuisine. The tree however has a secret or
two which you ignore at your own peril: you never climb it, for even
the strongest-looking branch or limb is apt to break without any
notice at the application of the smallest of loads. It also has
another trick to protect itself from the depredations by humans or
animals: it harbours a certain variety of caterpillars (known in
Tamizh as “Kambli Poochi” or “woolly insect”) which appear to
find its leaves irresistible.
In certain seasons the Moringa tree is covered in these caterpillars with stiff
wool-like bristles (hence the sobriquet). Woe betide those who came
in contact with these larvae; “itching” doesnt even begin to
describe it. The unfortunate humans usually end up with painful welts
and swear off Moringa for the rest of their lives. The trick for
harvesting the veggie is to attach a sharp sickle to the end of a
long bamboo stick and cut the pods out from their branches from a
safe distance – safe from falling branches or caterpillars. Or you
can take the easy way out and shop for them. However, horsey
supermarkets do not stock this veggie.
The leaves are
similarly safely harvested, making sure that no larvae are present
when one cooks them. This is a useful precaution for I have seen
nothing, absolutely nothing, molest those larvae. Not even the crows
which are generally voracious and are not very discerning eaters. I
might have seen a foolish crow or two trying the woolly larvae one
time; but they never returned for second helpings. The dead crows in
our garden were probably dead from consuming this larvae and had
nothing to do with the catapult I used to wield with considerable
skill.
The leaves were
supposedly possessed of cleansing properties; useful in cleansing the
remnants of unwisely large and rich meals, that is. Monthly
administration of these leaves was as much part of my childhood as
after-school exercises in arithmetics or Algebra. I am sure that
Srinivasan Ramanujan was fed more than his share of Moringa in his
childhood giving him a certain abnormal facility with numbers. Given
his claim that certain goddess spoke to him in his dreams offering
solutions to mathematical exotica, I am equally confident that those
leaves he was fed were not very well cleaned of the woolly larvae. It
is surprising that he did not have any offspring, though.
Surprising, because
the humble Moringa pod is considered a substance that inflamed a
man's base instincts. It is supposed to be avoided during the times
when one's thoughts are supposed to turn towards spiritual matters
and away from temporal stuff. Even today many elders avoid this
veggie on holy days of the Hindu calendar. I am unaware if its
purported aphrodisiacal properties are based on facts or are merely
myth. It is certainly not phallic in looks unless of course one were
ignorant or optimistic enough to imagine a male organ of 20 inches in
length (in which case its girth would disappoint).
This is not a
vegetable that lends itself easily for the making of a “vathal”,
another TamBram specialty. A vathal, literally, is a sun-dried vegetable. Careful as they are, TamBram families usually bought green
veggies when the latter were in season and the portion surplus to the
day's requirement was sun-dried for use during the off-season. With a
veggie like the Moringa, which had a thin layer of pulp inside the
fibrous and tough outer layer, the sun-drying eliminated the pulpy
layer as well as its delicate flavour. But still some
sun-dried it for future use. They were mostly the Iyengars.
It is said that if
some one could tease a yarn out of a stone or sun-dry a Moringa,
he/she has to be an Iyengar. These Vishnu-worshipping sub-set of
TamBrams produced no Nobel Winners but did produce a few outstanding beauties. It
is generally believed that the Iyers had the brains but Vishnu
favoured his devotees with the looks. During the ninth and tenth
centuries these two sects were at each other's throats and even took
part in palace intrigues of the Chola dynasty. In more recent times
the Iyers have focussed on migrating to America and the Iyengars on
making desiccated veggies and succulent women.
Imagine my surprise when recently I
read that the humble Moringa is the latest superfood, imbued with all
sorts of exotic goodnesses and that discerning and health conscious
Americans are taking to it.
Something tells me
that it is not for its alleged cleansing properties.
