Summers are a bowl full of nostalgia. What starts with raw mango pickles and tangy curries slowly turns sunshine yellow of the Alphonso. In the middle come the cashews, jamuns (black plum) and karvands (black currants). The season, maturing with the jackfruit, leading to more intensive recipes. The days of abandon spent wolfing down mangoes. The surplus ones, used to make fruit roll ups and pulps so the taste lingers long after the season wanes.
Early in March though it’s all about the kaju gar (raw cashew kernels). So ubiquitous are these kernels that they form an integral part of the summer menu across coastal Maharashtra. Every family has a different recipe, their own interpretation. Some use it to make pulavs, others curries. A few even add it to mutton gravies to add richness. In mine, it’s always the cashew and potato curry, cooked with roasted coconut powder for a thick consistency and nutty taste. For me, it’s a dish that is intricately linked to my childhood.
As kids, on summer vacations, we would go to the farm once the mangoes were ripe. As much as we liked to make up games and catch the mangoes, pile them up and fight over them, the trees were always out of reach. There was no chance of us climbing the tall branches nor were we allowed. On the periphery though there was a lone cashew tree. It wasn’t ours but it was within reach. Post lunch, once the adults were asleep, we would jump and curse and fall and laugh till one of us cousins got the fruit. This would then be handed over to grandma, who would remove the kernel and add it to the pile from the market. It was truly a labour of love.
With age, the cashew fruit became attainable, but holidays in the native grew sparse. More cashew trees were planted alongside mangoes on a new patch of land. Even as they mature, summers will always be laden with these old memories, that first bite transporting me back to the farm.
An edited version of this story was published in the anthology, Memories on a Plate. You can order your copy here.
A Thousand Mornings 