Bygone munchies of childhood

Just the other day, I was walking through a mall in New Delhi and noticed a stall selling steamed corn. The corn kernels (american sweet corn) were taken off the cob, softened by steaming and served with butter and various spices.Though  I had seen such stalls hundreds of times in the past, and even had bought and eaten the stuff that they sold, in this particular instance, it got me thinking.

Spicy Corn or Bhutta

 It reminded me of the times of my childhood, when we used to buy an eat roasted corn-on-the-cob, spiced with salt and lemon, right from the hands of a street vendor. This has now become an exotic food. Yes, I agree that you can still see vendors selling this stuff on the streets of many Indian cities. However, the rates are not reasonable and what you get is not really as enjoyable as it was in the olden days.

Gengulu

And that got me thinking...Thinking on the question "What were the street-foods that we used to have as children which are no longer seen commonly now-a-days?" or are no longer tried out 'as boldly as we had done before', to borrow a phrase from Star Trek.

Starting with the food varieties that are no longer seen around in the streets, the first of the lot that comes to my mind is what we used to call as Gengulu/Tegalu in Telugu. These are tender palm shoots. They are mostly eaten roasted. Some prefer to have them salted and steamed. Both the outer brown covering and the innermost stem of the shoots are inedible. The 'meat' has a woody, but interesting taste. Due to the source being palm trees, this food is generally more prevalent in coastal regions.

Singhoda

Another fruit that I no longer see being commonly sold in the streets is the Water Chesnut or Singhada. The fruits have a green outer covering and a white, watery interior. They are dried and powdered to a flour to be used during 'fasting' times in western India. However, the fruits can also be boiled and had as a snack. They are boiled and dyed black (the un-dyed boiled fruits have an unappealing moldy brown colour). The boiling makes the inner part of the fruit chalky white in colour.

Supermarket Ber's'

Ber of the yore

I also remember enjoying the sweet and sour taste of Ber (or Jujube or Chinese Apple). I distinctly remember the street vendor riding his bicycle with a load of the fruits in a wicker basket on the carriage of the bicycle, and shouting out along "Ber, Meethe Ber".  I also remember many instances when I had chased him and bought a handful of 'Ber' for 25 ps.  Those were the days when denominations less than Rs. 1 still had some value. Some of these vendors even accepted payment by barter system. The currency could even be old iron objects or newspapers.

The Ber is still widely available, sold in fruit stalls and supermarkets in nylon bags. But, they are more fleshy and almost tasteless without the sweetness or sourness of the 'original' ones that we used to have.

Hari Boot

One very memorable choice of munchies that I have not seen for a long long time is 'Hari Boot'. Searching on Google for its origins, I found that it was in fact a variety of chickpea or Chana. But, the major difference was in the style of consumption. The Hari-boot was not sold as peas separated out of the pods. In fact, they were sold with the peas inside the pods and the pods attached to the plants. We used to buy the whole plants, and spent our time searching for the pods and eating the green coloured crunchy peas from the pods. It was a great past time, because the more you consumed from a plant, the more difficult it was to find an unconsumed pod. They used to have a very short shelf life and perhaps that is the reason why I do not see them now, in an age where storability of a product is of some importance.

Carambola

Gooseberry

 If one has a 'sour' tooth, there were two more treats that one could have. The gooseberry or amla/nellikkai/usirikkai and the Carambola which was also called star-fruit. Both the fruits are still fairly common. However, the practice of having them raw seems to be 'out-of-fashion' now. Both the fruits have their own unique taste. It is quite an experience having a raw gooseberry (with or without salt) and then having a glass of water and seeing the magic of the water turning sweet. I am sure that most of you would have had this experience. However, I see that many of the kids today do not take a liking to the sharp taste. The ripe Carambola is comparatively mild in taste. Yet, it has a unique taste. One which is sweet with a touch of sourness.

When discussing about sour foods, how can I leave out the King of Sour. The tamarind fruit. Tamarind is an integral part of any Indian kitchen. It is readily available in any kitchen. But, now-a-days I rarely find tamarind fruit being eaten as a past-time food. Another 'victim' of the changing trends. I still it mouth-watering, even when I recall my days of eating ripe tamarind, with its sour-sweet taste or the green raw pods which were incredibly sour. But, as I said earlier, this 'tradition', I feel is also getting forgotten by today's children.

Munjal

During my childhood, come summer, we used to see vendors carting various 'watery' delights. Watermelons, tender coconuts and then there was the Palmyra Palm seeds, which were called Munjal. With a translucent flesh and filled with sweet tasting water inside, the Munjal was a welcome treat on a hot summer day. But, in the past few years, I have been able to see the Munjal being sold only in long distance trains by village vendors. Rarely do I see them being sold in the streets of our cities.

  

Jamun

My final entry in the 'fruits' category would be Jamun, the deep red or black coloured fruit of Java Plum tree. This is the tree which is found abundantly in the Indian subcontinent. In fact, it lends its name to the Indian subcontinent in ancient sanskrit texts as Jambu-dvipa. The fruits have a quirky astringent taste and leave a purple colour on the tongue when eaten. So, you needed to be very careful in not staining your clothes purple.

Processed street foods like chat and baraf-gola have always been labelled as unhygienic and their sources of water have always been under a cloud of suspicion, However, we were much more adventurous and I dare say much more robust against their (ill-)effects when compared to the kids today, or for that matter us-of-today.

But, I am really sad at the total disappearance of one item. The taffy. The memory of the 'taffy-man' on the street with multi-coloured taffy wrapped on a pole. He used to make rings and watches for us to wear from the taffy. A double advantage. Candy and accessory wrapped into one. I really doubt if I would be able to see such a vendor selling his goods on the streets. I think the 'hygiene problem' is to blame for this disappearance too.

I suppose that there are many most lost marvels in this category. But, I was able to recall only so many. I would be delighted if I find that some of them are not really lost.