Why Khirni will never make it to the big fruit league
Fans of DC Comics will know the Legion of Super Heroes, a group of teens with superpowers they use for heroic purposes. But you need to be a hard core fan to know about the teens in that series whose powers were deemed not super enough.
Undaunted, they took their slightly odd abilities - like turning into rock (Stone Boy), making plants grow superfast (Chlorophyll Kid), changing the colour of things (Color Kid), superstrength, but only in darkness (Night Girl) - and formed a Legion of Substitute Heroes that, truly heroically, vowed to help the Legion that had rejected them.
I always found the Legion of Substitute Heroes rather touching, and I am reminded of them when I see some of the fruits that appear as high summer sets in. You don't see these fruits on the stalls of vendors or in the fruit sections of supermarkets. These are dominated by oranges, pineapples, grapes, melons and mangoes, mangoes, mangoes, all Super Fruit Legion stalwarts.
The fruits I refer to are sold on the street at the margins of markets or from carts near municipal playgrounds where at least some children still seem to like these traditional, but now neglected fruits of the Indian summer. Some do better than others.
Jamun (Syzygium cumini) and amla (Phyllanthus emblica) still find many takers, maybe for health, since frankly I can't think of any other reason to eat them. Some like karonda (Carissa carandas) and gunda (Cordia obliqua) make good pickles when green (and ripe karonda makes a great preserve), and phalsa (Grewia asiatica) makes an excellent drink, as do, I am told, the elegant pink spirals of jungli jalebi (Pithecellobium dulce), though I've never found enough to try.
Some have a crisp juiciness that is refreshing even when it is sour as avla (Otaheite gooseberries, Phyllanthus acidus) or carambola (starfruit, Averrhoa carambola), or with no real taste, as with the bell shaped chambakka or white jambul (Syzygium samarangense).
Some, it must be admitted, have peculiar smells and many have that mouth-puckering astringency that seems meant to remind you that these aren't fruits of gently fertile climates, but of the searing summers of the subcontinent. They taste of "sunshine and dust" as Anne Grodzins Gold and Bhoju Ram Gujar put it in their collaborative oral history of the former small kingdom of Sarwar in Rajasthan, In the Time of Trees and Sorrows.
The villagers in it refer to "bor ka mangara", the berry wilderness, as a term for a place and time when such fruits grew plentifully and free for picking by all in common land near the village, which has now been claimed and ploughed.
One of the best of these fruits is also one of the least known. This is khirni or rayan, golden yellow berries that come for only a very short time in May just when the real heat of summer starts. It is often sold, in striking contrast, alongside dark purple jamun and many people associate it with a similar astringency. It has a touch of it, but this disappears if you let it to ripen almost to the point when rot sets in. This is one reason, perhaps, that the British sometimes called the khirni tree the Indian medlar, since medlars are a European fruit that famously must be almost rotten to be edible, but Indian medlar is now applied to the bakul, Mimusops elengi, which also has an edible, but uninteresting fruit.
Undaunted, they took their slightly odd abilities - like turning into rock (Stone Boy), making plants grow superfast (Chlorophyll Kid), changing the colour of things (Color Kid), superstrength, but only in darkness (Night Girl) - and formed a Legion of Substitute Heroes that, truly heroically, vowed to help the Legion that had rejected them.
I always found the Legion of Substitute Heroes rather touching, and I am reminded of them when I see some of the fruits that appear as high summer sets in. You don't see these fruits on the stalls of vendors or in the fruit sections of supermarkets. These are dominated by oranges, pineapples, grapes, melons and mangoes, mangoes, mangoes, all Super Fruit Legion stalwarts.
The fruits I refer to are sold on the street at the margins of markets or from carts near municipal playgrounds where at least some children still seem to like these traditional, but now neglected fruits of the Indian summer. Some do better than others.
Jamun (Syzygium cumini) and amla (Phyllanthus emblica) still find many takers, maybe for health, since frankly I can't think of any other reason to eat them. Some like karonda (Carissa carandas) and gunda (Cordia obliqua) make good pickles when green (and ripe karonda makes a great preserve), and phalsa (Grewia asiatica) makes an excellent drink, as do, I am told, the elegant pink spirals of jungli jalebi (Pithecellobium dulce), though I've never found enough to try.
Some have a crisp juiciness that is refreshing even when it is sour as avla (Otaheite gooseberries, Phyllanthus acidus) or carambola (starfruit, Averrhoa carambola), or with no real taste, as with the bell shaped chambakka or white jambul (Syzygium samarangense).
Some, it must be admitted, have peculiar smells and many have that mouth-puckering astringency that seems meant to remind you that these aren't fruits of gently fertile climates, but of the searing summers of the subcontinent. They taste of "sunshine and dust" as Anne Grodzins Gold and Bhoju Ram Gujar put it in their collaborative oral history of the former small kingdom of Sarwar in Rajasthan, In the Time of Trees and Sorrows.
The villagers in it refer to "bor ka mangara", the berry wilderness, as a term for a place and time when such fruits grew plentifully and free for picking by all in common land near the village, which has now been claimed and ploughed.
One of the best of these fruits is also one of the least known. This is khirni or rayan, golden yellow berries that come for only a very short time in May just when the real heat of summer starts. It is often sold, in striking contrast, alongside dark purple jamun and many people associate it with a similar astringency. It has a touch of it, but this disappears if you let it to ripen almost to the point when rot sets in. This is one reason, perhaps, that the British sometimes called the khirni tree the Indian medlar, since medlars are a European fruit that famously must be almost rotten to be edible, but Indian medlar is now applied to the bakul, Mimusops elengi, which also has an edible, but uninteresting fruit.
Khirni is called Ceylon ironwood (Manilkara hexandra, but earlier classified as Mimusops hexandra, so the link with bakul can be seen), a slow growing tree with wood that, as its name suggests, is very hard and prized for uses like supports in buildings or rollers in mills. Pradip Krishen in his wonderful guide to Delhi's trees says that the khirni can live for over 500 years and that some of them might be Delhi's oldest living trees.
It grows across India and as its name suggests, is particularly known in Sri Lanka where it is called the palai or palu. Its sweet yellow berries are such favourites of the island's sloth bears that the time of their ripening is unofficially known as the bear watching season.
I wouldn't quite fight with the notoriously grumpy bears for them, but I do buy them when I see them in Mumbai's streets (the lanes near Dadar station are a good place to find them). The khirni is a member of the Sapotaceae family, found across the tropics and which includes the sapota or chikoo (Manilkara zapota) from Central America.
There is a clear taste connection with the khirni, both sharing the same melting fruity sweetness, except that khirni is much smaller and less fleshy. This is the problem with this Legion of Substitute Fruits - they are either too peculiar to be popular, or when they are good they are a lot like another fruit that is more easily available, more fleshy and easier to grow and get.
Yet just as the Legion of Substitute Heroes had the emotional connect of underdogs, so too do these fruits, as reminders of seasonality and of long summers spent as children free from school when one had the time to buy these fruits from the roadside or, even better, pick them for free if you knew where they grew. Khirni will never make it to the big fruit league, but it is perfect to savour briefly when it appears, as a tribute to the high heat of summer, that most draining, yet defining of Indian seasons.
It grows across India and as its name suggests, is particularly known in Sri Lanka where it is called the palai or palu. Its sweet yellow berries are such favourites of the island's sloth bears that the time of their ripening is unofficially known as the bear watching season.
I wouldn't quite fight with the notoriously grumpy bears for them, but I do buy them when I see them in Mumbai's streets (the lanes near Dadar station are a good place to find them). The khirni is a member of the Sapotaceae family, found across the tropics and which includes the sapota or chikoo (Manilkara zapota) from Central America.
There is a clear taste connection with the khirni, both sharing the same melting fruity sweetness, except that khirni is much smaller and less fleshy. This is the problem with this Legion of Substitute Fruits - they are either too peculiar to be popular, or when they are good they are a lot like another fruit that is more easily available, more fleshy and easier to grow and get.
Yet just as the Legion of Substitute Heroes had the emotional connect of underdogs, so too do these fruits, as reminders of seasonality and of long summers spent as children free from school when one had the time to buy these fruits from the roadside or, even better, pick them for free if you knew where they grew. Khirni will never make it to the big fruit league, but it is perfect to savour briefly when it appears, as a tribute to the high heat of summer, that most draining, yet defining of Indian seasons.
Source : By Vikram Doctor, ET Bureau
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