THE HUMBLE SUPERFOOD

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.