Ganna
Sweet, juicy, succulent, tasty treat – Sugarcane it is!
The sight of carts carrying long black sugarcane bars on the roads sure cheers me up and makes my mouth water. I invariably end up buying one or two pieces for myself, they are so cheap too! On one such day I did a flashback into the past and figured that this yummy snack has kept me company since my childhood and continues to do so wherever I go.
First it was the sugarcane juice that I used to have regularly in Hyderabad, on the way back home from school. Occasionally dad used to get the green canes home and mom would clean and dice them into small cubes for us to snack on. Later in my 8th-9th of school years, we happened to shift to a tiny village in AP where Sugarcane was the primary crop. Bam… the cane entered our daily diet. I saw the various forms sugarcane took to get into the market. There is the ever popular juice and the cane, then there is Jaggery at different stages and color and texture. I particularly remember the thick syrup taken out before the final stages of jaggery making. There were a number of sweet treats created with that syrup. It tastes yummy with idli too :).
Aah… those memories...passing through the roads in a rikshaw with sugar cane fields on both sides...the smells of the jaggery making...the sweet treats...hmm feeling nostalgic.
Come college life and voila!...sugarcane again! It was the hot favorite among all the hostel girls. Every evening the cart was allowed to get inside the gate and all of us would flock around it and choose the best ones to buy. Later we’d all gather in a room each with a cane and a dustbin and chat for hours while enjoying the sugarcane. End of the day, the central dustbin of the hostel would be filled with the sugarcane trash and the maids would crib to hell.Its here that I learnt how to process and eat the sugarcane - pull out the outer skin using your teeth...then break them into pieces...again with teeth! Lucky I never broke any tooth ;-). I infact found this way more enjoyable than eating preprocessed cubes or cutting with a sickle.
Went to a whole new state - Gujarat...and the sugarcane shows up there too! Am I lucky or what ! Well wasn't so easy to eat the hard cane, so I satisfied myself with the juice.
Bangalore; now its two of us who enjoy the cane regularly - my husband and I :). Successfully passed on to him, the art of eating sugarcane. Also, we regularly visit the sugarcane juice stall on 'double road' under the flyover. They've got the best juice I've ever had and whats more ?...its clean and hygienic! The dash of ginger and lemon makes all the difference to the sweet juice.
The sugarcane affair continues...hopefully passing through generations. I won't be surprised if in future my great grand daughter blogs about it!
posted by Tweety @ 6:33 AM
3 Comments:
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Umm..
Well, when I read this post, I couldnt help remembering the days after 'pongal'when me and my sisters used to have competitions about who's got the strongest of teeth, by eating the maximum no of pieces :-p. Oh ya, no of peices were counted by the no of nodes that you munch off :-p
Do u remember the Colgate ad, where a man would bite off a piece of sugarcane, and show the power of his strong tooth ? guess he was my hero then ;-)
send me some Ganna ... it still aint here in Hyd !! btw .. chk my new pic and post. Pic from my trip to Ramoji and post from .. well my mind :)
Cheers !
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