Summer Camp Part 2 - Making of Avvakkai & Preserves.

Come summer and it was time to plan for the rains and winter ahead.

I still recollect how another of mom’s sister and her daughter, Jaya akka of East Marredpally and me would go to the Monda Market near the Secunderabad Railway Station to buy raw, sour and bright green mangoes in bulk.
It would be around mid-March and all houses would pool together to make large quantities of Avvakkaya pickle.

The needs of each house would be kept in mind before going to the market.
If uncle’s need was for 50 mangoes, aunt’s son’s for 50 mangoes and her daughter’s for 25 mangoes, then 3 of us will go to the market to get 110 mangoes as some 15 extra mangoes will always be thrown in by the seller for free, due to bulk buying.

Then I remember how we went around doing some more processing before returning back home with bags full of cut mangoes. As the mangoes were raw they would be hard to cut. This pickle needs to be cut alongwith the tough seed cover intact. So there would be a special shop just to cut these raw mangoes for Avakkai.
8 pieces to a mango would be the count. (First a powerful blow from a sharp sword-like cutter would halve the mango. Then one half would be cut into 2 and again these 2 will be cut into halves). That makes 8 pieces to a mango.
One of us would hold the bag into which 50 x 8 pieces of cut mangoes would go. Similarly for another 50 and then for another for 25 mangoes. It required manpower to lug around such dead weight and I would be the first to volunteer for such outdoor activities.

We would move on with the loads to the grocer’s to buy the whole spices for the pickle preparation. Rock salt. Red chillies. Mustard seeds. Gingely oil. Whole Bengal gram dal. Fenugreek seeds. The quantities were carefully pre-calculated and bought just for the pickles. The red chillies would be from a particular district in Andhra like the famed Guntur chillies which would be spicier and more reddish in color than the other chilly varieties.
Then we would hop onto a cycle-rickshaw to come back with the load. The elderly two would sit on the seat while I would sit at their feet on one side with my legs hanging freely down below - at times touching the road surface if I was not careful. The bags would be adjusted in whatever available space with all of us holding this or that so that things arrived all intact. All this was so much of an adventure.

The process of cleaning the mango pieces would take a long time so all the other ladies would join hands to quickly deal with the task while two of them would start supervising the maid servant with the pounding of the mustard seeds, salt and the red chillies into a fine powder with a wooden pestle. There would be a certain rhythm to this pounding and the maid would sing softly to reduce her strain. Or she would just mutter a 'sshh', 'sshh' with each powerful pounding stroke.

Elsewhere in a big room, another important activity of removing a thin film-like sheet inside the kernel of each and every piece of the cut mango would be taking place. Simultaneusly the mango piece would be wiped clean of all dirt. The contents of each bag would be emptied and cleaned separately, one by one.
Then in a huge vessel (which would be taken out, washed, dried and again wiped clean), a batch of the cleaned mango pieces, salt, chilly powder, mustard powder, fenugreek seeds, Bengal gram dal would be added according to the quantities of cut pieces. I would keenly listen to the elders comment about last year’s pickle and its taste and the proportion of the various powders for this year, the price rise, of course, even then this was a hot favourite topic to discuss.
(Each and every year the standard procedure of adding about 250gms each of salt, red chilli powder and mustard powder, for cut pieces of 25 mangoes still rings in my ears and I follow the same ratio todate while preparing avvakkaya at home) 50gms each of fenugreek and Bengal gram dal and mixed well with bare hands so that each piece is coated with all the spices. Then that batch was packed in large, clean and dry ceramic jars. Oil was then poured over it until the eye could see the oil layer floating freely on top of the mixture below in the tall jar. I should not miss telling about the measuring cup of those days. It was a circular tin like the ones we get milkmaid in these days. Those days these tins were called as 'cigarette tins'. Perhaps these tins were packed with cigarettes before it came to households to be used as a measuring units. Each would hold about 250gm of salt or whatever powder we filled it with. So for every 25 mangoes, one cigarette tin of mustard powder, one of red chilly powder, one of salt, a 5th of whole fenugreek and a 5th of whole bengal gram dal would be added to be mixed well. Roughly 750ml of gingely oil would suffice to soak these mangoes in a ceramic jar. These are the proportions followed for the lime pickle but the ingredients are lesser with only salt, slit green chillies, slit fresh ginger, a tablespoon of turmeric powder and a tablespoon of asoefotida would make the best lime pickle in the world but only with the right process employed while making them.
Coming back to our mango pickling. Note that nothing is cooked. Everything is used in its raw state only. Then the jar is sealed well so that the pickle will be let to soak and soften the mangoes with all these spices. The Bengal gram dal and fenugreek also would soak in the spices and would be so tasty to eat.
More than the taste it was the group effort from the eldest to the youngest in making pickles and preserves like vadams or vadiyalu which was fun learning and knowing many things which cannot be taught in a class. There would be interesting gossip about this relative and that. Those were the days. Without really making an effort we would all learn new things each and every day through such activities like making a list, judging quantities, budgeting, finance, taking appropriate shopping bags, shopping for things, getting things done before we could get to taste the fresh avakka pickles of the year. There was a special taste to these things because of our direct participation in making them.

It was not only avakka. There were gooseberry pickles to make. Gooseberry jam to make. Papads, rice cakes preserves to make and dry in the hot sun. the tasting sessions would be the best. The worst would be to sit in the hot sun in the terrace to drive away crows and other birds who would also like to taste the items before they could turn bone dry. These would be deep fried. A small piece of dried rice cake would flare up to become such a big piece in hot oil and would be so tasty too. Not even potato chips can replace this taste.

Varieties of mango pickles like sweet sour, the one with fenugreek, asoefotida, chilli powder, oil and salt – called the mendia manga, manga morabba (mango marmalade), etc. then the lime pickles. The summer kept us all busy with such activities. By coming together we were helping each other prepare the bigger volume things which were useful on rainy days when vegetables would be scarce.

I prepare these things even now but alone. Quantities never scare me as I have handled and seen great quantities being made from my childhood days. At 56 the enthusiasm still persists but my arms beg me to take rest more often during such attempts. Anyway I don’t make for 5 families. I make for only my own family of 5 which has shrunk to 3 with the two kids away for the past 2 years now.

In Summer Camp Part 3 I would like to say something of a special jam I watched in the making at Ananthpur at my paternal grandma's house.

Cheers.
Mahalakshmi.