Though I am aware I have to finish off my list of favourite Hindi, Telugu and Tamil movies but can do that when I have more time than I have today.
It's state elections. Have to cast my vote and rush off to attend a ceremony elsewhere.
Instead I thought I should share with you a short one on something which struct me as I was buying the raw banana for tomorrow's curry or whatever, at the grocer's.
They were a bright green and very healthy looking ones. I had to buy them even as thoughts of many recipes with them raced through my mind.
In my childhood it was a common sight to see a bunch of raw bananas (which are meant only for cooking and not ripening into fruits) floating in a container filled with water. That too for days on end (even for as long as 15 days) before it could be cut to be used in simple curries and other dishes like koottu, chips, podi, etc. They would remain fresh. Only this vegetable was put in the water.
I asked my mom the reason for putting them in the water instead of in the fridge. She told me it was to prevent it from turning ripe. A raw banana is treated as a vegetable. Even if it were to ripen we don't prefer to eat it. The fruit variety is different from this vegetable variety both in shape and size. I have noticed how they turn blackish and tasteless when stored in the fridge.
We have a lot to learn from our previous generation on naturally available preservation techniques. As an after thought, in these days of Dengue is it good to keep water surface open? Inviting mosquitoes in to lay their eggs in fresh water and cause ailments to us?
Food for thought!
Cheers.
Mahalakshmi
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ReplyDeleteyes, this is how we preserve the raw bananas @ home. Thanks to my MIL. also we put tender coconuts in water when we have to use a day or two later, wrap vazhaiilai in cloth so that it does not dry.
I believe in olden days when there was no fridge, they used to store green vegetables in man chatti.
regarding your que on water surface open, we have to keep changing the water daily other wise it sort of builds a fungus over the surface of the vazhakkai or tender coconut and like you mentioned a breeding ground for mosq..