My manga comic

Why the perfect pickle is always as much about custom as about cuisine

August 29, 2014 07:53 pm | Updated August 30, 2014 04:17 pm IST

May was winding down to a warm, languid close, and we were heading home after a lazy Sunday spent eating and sleeping in our cottage by the pool. We had almost cleared the gate, when amma saw the mangoes on the tree. Of course, we had to stop the car immediately.

“I haven’t yet made my season’s avakkai,” she said.

“But you can’t carry all this back to Bangalore,” I said, “and besides you’re not well.”

“Oh, we must pick the right size,” she replied, clearly ignoring me.

So I trooped out in her wake, she surprisingly agile now considering how her fragile heart had been misbehaving just minutes ago. The watchman was peremptorily summoned and he arrived, happy to participate in what was clearly going to be a properly managed ritual, not some silly city-slicker’s casual demands.

Guided by a long stick with a sickle tied to its end and amma’s keen eye, Ezhumalai soon began to drop likely candidates. “They can’t be too small or too big,” said amma. After several rejects, the first one was approved. “Now pick them all the same size,” she instructed. Soon, a small, green pile had grown steadily under her beady eye. Old newspapers were found and the raw mangoes wrapped and deposited in the boot.

“We’ll make the avakkai in your house,” amma announced.

“Err…” I began.

“You make it. I’ll tell you how,” she said.

I wasn’t sure this was a great idea. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love avakkai. And vadu maanga. But I don’t make pickles. Or vadams. Or ice cream. Not at home. Not when I can buy these things at a store. But they say one must humour old people and mothers, especially when they are unwell and, well, fragile.

So the next day, we shopped for supplies. Til oil, chickpeas, turmeric, salt, fenugreek, mustard and, most important, chilli powder. Amma told me I had to buy two kinds of chilli powder — one a bright red Kashmiri one and the other a blazingly spicy one. One would impart the colour, the other the kick.

The manga (as the raw fruit is called in Tamil) pretty much took up the rest of that day. First washed, then wiped dry, then cut… and they had to be cut just so. “Each cube must have a bit of the seed in it,” amma said. Without that, the pickle would lose its crunch. The sharpest, heaviest knife was rooted out, the loss of the old, curved aruvamanai deeply grieved, the quality of modern kitchenware roundly deplored. I chopped. And amma took up each piece and examined it critically — “that one has too little seed in it”; “this one’s shape is all wrong” — but deigned to accept most of them, carefully removing the cellophane-like wrapping found at the heart. Finally, the pieces were sent out into the bright Chennai sun, to sit on the parapet of the well in my backyard for about three hours.

When they came back in, slightly tanned, they were ready to mingle with the other participants of this unfolding drama. Soon, a bright red and gleaming fusion of oil, chilli powder, turmeric, salt, ground mustard, whole fenugreek and chickpeas had been created.

By now, a large cylindrical steel vessel or adukku had been discovered in my kitchen cupboard, gifted no doubt by my mother when I was married, and it was forced into duty. In the absence, I was reminded, of the ceramic jaadi, the only thing normal people use for pickles. Into this, I slowly began to layer the mango and the spice mix, alternately, using the back of the ladle to press it all down so no air pockets would remain.

Amma, meanwhile, had successfully forced my father to part with one of his oldest veshtis. She tore out a small piece and then carefully ripped out the border so that it emerged in her hands like a thin cord. Armed with these, she returned to the kitchen, where I was wimpishly contemplating cling film to cover the container.

“Wash and thoroughly wring out this muslin rag and cord,” she ordered. “And use it to cover the mouth.” Apparently, the moisture would not only make a better seal as the cloth dried but also allow me to knot the cord tighter. Now came instructions about where the jar must be placed and, most important, when and how it must be opened to stir and check the contents.

My mother left for Bangalore the next day, entrusting the family’s annual avakkai to my inexpert care. Forget all those liberating TV adverts about touching the pickle, amma by now had filled me with enough dread that I did not dare touch the damned jar unless I had bathed each morning. Then I would rush to the window sill where it rested, gently lower it to the kitchen counter, unwrap its mouth and (after drying the ladle about 53 times) thoroughly stir the contents. I did this regularly for roughly a week, faithfully relaying the process to my ma over the phone. “Did you wet the cloth before covering it?” “Did you mix it well?” “Did you tamp it down again?” Yes, yes and yes.

Then, one day, “It’s ready,” she announced, long distance. “You can taste it, and bottle the rest.” I picked out a piece carefully. It emerged from its crimson sea like a glossy Aphrodite and rested on my white rice. The manga was just as scrunchy as it ought to be, the chickpea crunchy, the spices mouth-watering, the combination delightful.

Amma came visiting the next week. To take the pickle to its rightful home. I, boasting slightly, asked how it was. “Well, I’ve tasted better,” she said. “Of course, I myself am too fragile these days to be making pickle…”

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