A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the arrival of the king of fruit, mango. It won’t be an exaggeration to claim that most of us in India await summer for the advent of this delightful, aromatic, juicy golden/saffron hued fruit. It is pureed into shakes, juices, icecreams, pickled and chutneyed, but for the most part, eaten as it is, sliced or whole. It stays centrestage in all our meals, well into April-August and sometimes beyond.
But summer has its bounty of many other fruits too, humbler than the mango on the tastebuds, maybe, but bringing with it, much joy and fulfillment, nonetheless, which get sidelined in all the hoopla around their more glamorous counterpart.
My list of the fruits I enjoy eating in summer is quite extensive. Topping the list is watermelon, the most underrated fruit, if there was one. It may seem amazing that the ubiquitous green and round (as a football) fruit lined on the streets and stores in India has actually got about 1200 varieties and thrives in temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius in both tropical and temperate zones.
Composed of almost 80 percent of water, watermelons are a great way of keeping one hydrated in the harsh summer months. It is also high in the organic pigment lycopene, which is high in carotenoid, which in turn are known to be antioxidants which in trn are anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antidiabetic and neuroprotective, besides being a great diet choice for weight-watchers!
In fact, I can have more watermelon servings than mango as they don’t make you feel heavy or cause allergies or stomach upsets as too much of mango can do, sometimes.
My favourite way of eating watermelon is to have them cubed (after peeling the rind and white layer of corse) and chilled, sometimes sprinkled with a bit of rock salt. I also love watermelon juice with a few chopped small chunks of watermelon added to give you the texture and bite.
And my absolute favorite salad has got to be the watermelon and feta cheese salad, with a sprig of basil leaf and an olive oil dressing. The combination of flavours, sweet, salty with the goodness and taste of olive oil lends to this salad a simple rustling of ingredients ending up like a taste bomb!
Apparently, the watermelon rind and white peel are also recycled into cooking as we witnessed during the lockdown months, when many recipes were shared online, of sautéed watermelon rind, and even a dosa using watermelon rind! I am not too sure if I would ever use the rind, not because I am not convinced of its potential health benefits but for hygiene reasons. Imagine the places the humble watermelon would have been to, piled on trucks on highways, rolled onto the streets etc. Will any amount of washing the fruit help getting rid of the possible risks of contamination?
These days, there are also reports of watermelon being injected with chemical dyes to impart a bright red colour and also with sugared water into the fruit to make it sweeter and carbide to make it look rounder and hence more perfect. But as nutritionists like Rujuta Diwekar who periodically warn us of fruits which look too good to be true is bad news, its always a good idea to test these aspects before buying your stash of watermelon.
My other favourite is the muskmelon, with its delicate musk aroma and its pillowy-soft flesh, my favouite way of enjoying it in summer is again chilled with a spike of honey. It is better than any dessert, though I will never say no to muskmelon sorbet/ice cream/milkshakes or even a mojito as I had recently!
Ice apple, or Thati Munjalu as it is known here in Hyderabad, is another summer fruit which I never tire of. A comparatively lesser-known tropical fruit of the palmyra palm tree native to south Asia, south east Asia and India, ice apple is a fleshy, white and translucent fruit which resembles litchi in appearance and its jelly-like texture. It has a deliciously juicy and mildly sweet taste on the palate and is packed with trace minerals like sodium and potassium, which help in maintaining the fluid and electrolyte balance in the body, preventing dehydration and fatigue.
Ice apple is a low-calorie fruit providing 43 calories per 100 grams and only 11 grams of carbs, so it is obviously a good choice for weight management too. Ice apple toddy is also sold along with the fruit by toddy tappers from a few rural districts of Telangana on the streets of Hyderabad especially at busy junctions on the outskirts and highways.
While ice apple tastes good as it is, in its already cool and moist form, I recently had an Ice Apple cooler, which had ice apple, fresh lime and rose syrup, topped with ice and I cant even put it in words about how divine it tasted!
And who can forget lychee or litchi as it is known in India? I remember getting absolutely delighted by the enormous size of the lychee as its known in China, on a trip to my brother’s home in HongKong in summer. While I did enjoy the seafood delights that the sea-side city offered, it were the bowls of those humungous-sized lychees which I enjoyed devouring more.
I miss the Muzzafarpur (district in Bihar) litchi which we used to access equally comfortably in both Bhubaneswar as well as in Delhi, here in Hyderabad. In the south, it is a tad more difficult (and therefore expensive to source) but when it makes an appearance on the streets anywhere in Hyderabad, I just have to buy some!
Last but not the least, the Java or Malabar plum or Jamun as its known in India, qualifies as one of my most favourite summer fruits, to which I look forward to in anticipation. Deep purple in colour and again with a fleshy texture, jamun has an astringent taste and is best had washed and sprinkled with salt.
Jamun sorbets are now increasingly made by ice cream makers and jamun is now getting common as a popular juice flavor, especially for diabetics. India happens to be the largest jamun producer in the world and most of it is grown in UP, Maharashtra, Tami Nadu, Gujarat and Assam.
So, while I revel in mango during summer, I make sure I give other summer fruits my equal, undivided attention once they start appearing in fruit markets and food /grocery apps!