Papad Badiyan Aur Achaar : Smmer Ki Bahar

Papad , Badiyan Aur Achaar : Summer Ki  Bahar 

I remember my childhood days, summer time used to bring a different kind of fun in  Western UP cities, towns, villages. During this season, like most of the women folk my Grandma was very busy in making achar of mangoes, red pepper, lassode, carrots, cranberries , papad of potatoes,rice, urad and moong dal, badiyan of urad and moong  dals , organic vinegar of sugarcane juice, jamun for rest of the year . It was a kind of festive ritual as ladies of my grandma’s  age from neighbouring houses also actively participated in this ritual. As the  summer used to be a long vacation time , we all kids were also  instrumental in helping them. 

Similarly, in Maharashtra where I currently live , the summer season is meant for preserving produce for rainy season . The whole idea is to preserve vegetables and fruits to ensure sufficient stocks for the long monsoon period  that would offer very little fresh produce. Even fishing activities cease during monsoon. In Maharashtra, the summer sees a surplus of mangoes, jackfruit, kokum. In the Konkan belt in particular, mangoes and jackfruit are preserved in the form of amba poli and phanas poli (fruit leather). Kokum and other souring fruits are dried to make amsol (dried kokum) and kokum juice. Vegetables like gavar (cluster beans) are soaked in spiced buttermilk and sun-dried, to be turned into stirfries. In Maharashtra the sandges are  dried on a white dhoti, possibly because these were made of soft, undyed cotton. The vadis are deep fried and used all-year round. They are also cooked with other vegetables or greens. You can call them as  original plant-protein alternative. 

Each region uses a different combination of pulses and vegetables. A common one in Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra for instance, is ash gourd and black gram.

In neighbouring State Goa, It’s a tradition many families continue to follow summer as a festive time. In fact the locals in Goa celebrate festival based on the season of storing and preserving, called purument, from the Portuguese proviso, or “making provision”. Every May, the Margao church celebrates the Purumentache feast—a weeklong outdoor fair that sees home cooks and vendors selling everything from dried fish to pickles and sausages. By the way, this year, it was celebrated on 28 May. Goa goes beyond satt, mango and jack-fruit leather, sun-drying cereals and pulses like alsande (cowpeas) as well as spices like teppal/tefla and souring agents like mango, kokum, bimbli (kamrakh in north) and otamb (monkey jack).

Throughout its existence, Indian cuisine has been localised and seasonal. This meant the diet had a variety of plant foods but before refrigeration and cold chain , it had limited shelf life. And so Indian culinary culture created solutions for food preservation, including a variety of dough-based dumplings , pasta-like dried foods that mimicked vegetables, and dried foods like papads and badis that supple- mented the diet.

It is true that due to effective cold chain management many items are available in the market all-year round now, many households in Goa still follow purument as it is an age-old tradition and it helps discerning households maintain the quality of their ingredients”.

In another neighbouring Gujarat, dried vegetables are called sukavni. Typically, vegetables like bitter gourd, okra, cluster beans and lotus root are sun-dried and later deep-fried to serve as a crunchy side to a meal.

In Rajasthan Panchkuta, is made from dried produce. It consists of five ingredients: dried sangri (wild beans of Prosopis cineraria), dried ker (berries of Capparis deciduas), dried goonda (gum berry), amchur (dried raw mango) and dried koomti (acacia seeds).

A favourite across many states, vadia dumpling called badi in UP, Haryana and Punjab , vadyo, sandge—is made of ground dals and cereals with puréed vegetables and spices. The dal paste is ladled out on cloth or plastic in different shapes and forms.