If you have any chance, at all, of getting your hands on Gongura, I would love to see you make Gongura Pachadi and Gongura Pappu.
Gongura is this leafy vegetable. It has a sour sort of a taste. And it is my favorite thing that my mom makes. I always end up going to see her on the day she has made it, by complete accident or she hides a little bit for me whenever she makes it.
I will also get you her recipe for both. Also, if you are eat meat Gongura mutton is the THE BEST THING TO EVER HAVE HAPPENED.
My experience making, eating and feeding Gongura
- Gongura tastes sour and sour is the best thing food can be. I like sour so much that I was gifted a big box of Center Shock, a goosebump raising-ly sour chewing gum which got discontinued in India. I must get that from papa and dadi because they loved Gongura. Mumma, who is not fan, still ate most of it.
- Gongura in Amravati is called Ambadi. I am sure 20 kms from here it is called something else. I find it astonishing and endearing that human language changes so much and so little over regions and time.
- Dadi got excited to have some Gongura at home. She stole half of the bunch I had got and made ‘Ambadi che varan’ with it; which on close inspection is Gongura Pappu! She told me she will make 3 different things with it next week. That Gongura is a poor man’s vegetable. Men and women pick it on their way home from the farm and make it into bhakris and different dals and chutneys.
She spent 84 years thinking we birthed and monopolized this vegetable. She even told me that cherry tomatoes are tomatoes that randomly grew on the outskirts of her farm. I am going to ease her into information about potatoes and chilies.
I like researching food. Who would have thought? The same girl who dumped food inside herself with the same energy she put petrol in her car “Argh I have to do it because it is necessary. I wish it was cheaper” is now finding local names for Gongura, finding out where different vegetables came from and when during the year they can be found. Gongura/Ambadi/Kenaf/Rod sorel/Sour Spinach: Andra Pradesh. Sweet Potatoes are seasonal tubers. Was I the only one who thought they are cultivated all year long?
Before Via Dil, food feel into ‘home’ or ‘exotic’ category. Bhindi : home, Thukpa : Exotic. Bhindi would never be ordered in a restaurant and thukpa would never be made at home. Hence there would be no experimentation with it, like no one would add potato to Thukpa to see if I like it. At first glance, P from the past would have categorized Gongura into the exotic box and put it at the top of her cupboard to only be opened on occasions or when visiting friends. But here I am researching, finding that all food is home food in a globalized world; you just need to know local names/resourceful people or a good “substitute this for that” website.
Recipe
https://www.archanaskitchen.com/andhra-gongura-pachadi-andhra-style-sorrel-leaves-chutney