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Showing posts from July, 2013

Nellikaai... Goose berry- the all Vitamin C rich Fruit

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As kids in a rural town in Southern India, we had no clue on any of the cadburys varieties of candies and were more exposed to easily available fruits and nuts for less than a rupee. In my school days, (in the 90s), we always had ground nuts, some of the local berries (Naga pazham- a type of blue berry in India) and goose berries sold in front of our school. It used to cost only 25-50 paise, to get a handful of  these :). We also had a gooseberry tree (bigger variety- more nutricious one) at home. No one planted it, but it gave us huge amount of  gooseberries each year. My father would give it to each and every single household (atleast 1 kg per home) but we still will end up having some cases left. The traditional grandmother's recipe is to soak gooseberries in salted water adding some turmeric powder, for atleast a week. Whenever we needed to make a fresh pickle, these gooseberries are the instant choice prepared in no time for a guest (usually the mappillais: son-in-laws)