Locomotoring

In between meetings and with a lunchbox in hand, I sometimes tune into SF Asian Art Museum’s Takeout Tuesdays: Lunchtime Conversations About Art. This week they chose to showcase their collection of betel containers from Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines and discussed the disappearing tradition of betel nut chewing.

That conversation brought back a specific memory of a multi-generational gathering of women in my family.

In India, the betel nut chewing tradition is the same as eating “paan”. (What is Paan?). The museum suggests the word “quid” to what we know as “paan”- a betel leaf (Piper betle) wrapped around a mixture of chopped areca nut (fruit of Areca catechu palm, called betel nut in general parlance, but has nothing to do with Piper betle, called Supari in India) and the slaked lime, sometimes flavored with herbs, spices, and the star, the chewing tobacco.

The piper betle leaf are the size of the palm of a hand and are heart shaped. In my culture, women’s faces are often referred to as resembling the betel leaf. I remember that for many years, parsley reminded me of betel leaf aroma. The food grade slaked lime (calcium dihydroxide or calcium hydrate) has low acute toxicity i.e., it may be a skin, eye and respiratory irritant. But don’t be alarmed, a study suggests that adding slaked lime to rice can add the necessary calcium in deficient diets. Areca palm looks like a small palm tree, and its fruit clusters look not unlike date clusters from a distance. To access the nutmeg sized nut, you have to de-husk like you would a coconut. The nuts are chopped before adding to the paan. They have a lovely red vein like pattern on the inside. Depending on how hard they are, you can chop them fine into slivers (for older and harder nuts) or leave them a little chunkier.

In the Himachal tradition, there is an unusual preparation called “Supari ka Madra” – the whole areca nut is repeatedly soaked in fresh water for 10 days and then pre-cooked in milk for 15 minutes to subsequently prepare it for a rich curry. To see more, move to the 15 minute mark on the video “Exploring Kullu: Myths, Gods, and Lost Flavors” by The Epic Channel (link). Apparently, after all that hard work, the supari tastes like mushroom. Assam, where my father was first located during the early days of his public health career, has a practice of fermenting the betel nuts (link), unfortunately, the fermentation increases the carcinogenic properties of betel nut.

My mother has consumed paan as long as I have remembered. Apparently, women get started on paan when they become pregnant. It is purported to be an excellent anti-dote to morning sickness. The chewing tobacco becomes addictive. I remember the tradition of offering paan to visitors. The museum docent had discussed ornate boxes – presumably belonging to upper class families. At home, it was a simpler affair. Brass container for the leaves, the leaves were wrapped in a moist cheesecloth to keep the leaves from drying out. A brass plate covered the container, and held a small steel box containing the slaked lime, a few areca nuts and a steel nut cutter. The offering of paan to women visitors had felt very intimate. Instead of bringing the paan out on a platter, the guests would be taken to where the paan paraphernalia was kept for made to order personalized paan. Often the kitchen and in my great grandmother’s case, it was her puja room.

I have been remembering my enigmatic great grandmother, the woman with a few words. She had lived a long and quiet life and had passed away last week many years ago.

In this memory, we are at our grandmother’s home, a lovely two storied blue house in then idyllic suburbia of Calcutta, now a busy thriving small town. The boundary of the house was surrounded by areca palm and coconut trees. You could almost reach your hand out of the window for an areca nut. My mom was raised by my great grandmother. And my great grandmother had lived with my grandmother in her old age. It was a comfortable gathering of women who had known each other intimately. They were sitting on the cool terrazzo floor de-husking the freshly harvested areca nuts. My best guess is that I was eight or nine. I had asked to taste a bit of the areca nut and was offered a tiny pebble shaped one. It had tasted like munching on wood and it had made my head swim. That was the last time I had any component of a paan. Apparently, the younger areca nuts are psychoactive and causes a buzz and my grandmother loved that buzz.