PICKLES AND JELLY

The produce from the farm such as mangoes and guavas are used to make tasty tongue-tickling pickles, and sold in the market, and the response from food lovers has been very encouraging. It is our idea to expand this activity, it is our hope that value addition, that is, instead of selling mangoes if we sell them as pickles it would fetch better price. Similarly the guavas grown at the farm are being used to make very tasty jelly which can be used along with bread made at Pathway or, if you wish, with ice-cream, or just plain. This is being produced as recommended by CFTRI, Mysore.

Precious herbs, some of which is gathered from our own farm, go into the making of these pickles and jelly. It is recommended that, while everyone likes these, it is specially recommended for those who want to reduce weight. Because one of our friends says she has done it successfully, and that she is surviving splendidly on these alone. Curd rice plus these pickles makes a complete meal, and our bread plus guava jelly for breakfast. A simple, mouthwatering menu. We will soon add more to the variety when the farm grows and our staff and children grow familiar with the recipes and techniques.

Our friend says that most dieters who happen to achieve significant weight loss, lose too much of lean body mass, that is, muscle and organic tissue, thus losing strength and agility and appearance. Less muscle means pleasing curves flatten out, chests sink, and arms and legs start looking spindly. And making things worse, this lessened lean body mass lowers the metabolic rate, making it harder to keep the fat off permanently, this is known as the "yo-yo Diet" syndrome, not good at all, and you are in a pickle. On the other hand our friend proposes a "ha ha Diet programme", and has presented Chandra Prasad with a copy of the famous Usha's Pickle Digest. Those who read it are bound to share her passion for pickles. Usha Prabhakaran has pursued the art of picklemaking to perfection. We read a glorious review of her work in the Hindu recently and derived great inspiration for our own research.

Our crew is being trained in lavishing meticulous care on each stage of the process- selecting, grinding, sieving, blending, frying, and garnishing. It seems Usha gave up a high- profile job in order to dedicate her whole life to pickling. Our country is the herbal paradise of the world, where the culinary art can attain to the summit of perfection, is her inspiring message. The art of pickle-making has been dying out because factory-made pickles were replacing grandma's specials. Further, we don't have to make them inordinately spicy to be perfect, she says. Our choice crew are avidly studying all her thousand and odd recipes, as well as her inspiring life story, in order to dedicate themselves to the great art of pickles as a vocation.

We have also adopted Mallika Badrinath's dozen books or so as part of the vocational syllabus. These books have been selling like hot cake, or rather, hot pickles. She is now affectionately and reverently recognised as the Culinary Queen. It seems The British Book Awards for Author of the Year went to a cookbook-writer Nigella Lawson whose " HOW TO BECOME A DOMESTIC GODDESS" placed Mallika on top of the list. It is amusing to learn that Nigella displaced the creator of the Harry Potter series who had won the award the previous year. The power of the cooking pan superceding the power of the sorcerer's stone!

Finally, Chandra and her pickling crew, impressed by an article by Jan Whitley Hansen (Holladay, Utah), under the caption "What shall I cook for Dinner?" (The ENSIGN, Jan 2000), are preparing a complete guidebook for use at our Agrofarm students hostel as well as for use by any mother, or father, who aims to fill the home with greater love than ever before as a domestic God or Goddess. This will guide you on making a good list of the typical meals your family likes to eat (inclusive of Pathway pickles and jellies), the nutritional planning and calories calculation simplified, the recipes written on three-by-five inch cards, master list of needed ingredients, shopping programs and schedules, and at last how you should turn the card around and place it at the back of the file box, signaling that the recipe has been used for that day, etc etc. The research wing of our vocational group is a hardworking and ambitious team, and they hope to make pickling and jelly making one of the top vocational streams for our boys and girls.

----Report from Sathya