I was a chubby kid while growing up. Fish and Chicken were my favourites. While growing up I had the privilege of getting different varieties of fresh seafood because of our hometown being in the close proximity of the coastal line. On all working days my mom used to buy fresh seafood from the fish market which is on her way home from work. Just when she enters the vicinity of our home I would feel hungry instantly. My mom should be on the clock from the time she enters home until she makes that fish curry or fish fry 😂
The Sunday's in our home are known for two things, a. The church Day and b. The Meat Day. I'd be hungry 😋 at least 4 times on Sundays. A breakfast before church, one after church, a late lunch and a dinner. On most times I get up early and on Sundays that would be really early and I'd take my cycle to go for meat shopping. I do not bother about the queues as well, because now I need to be on the clock before and reach home before 7:30am to deliver the meat to my mom. Doing this means she would get time to cook breakfast for me before she leaves to Church (she goes to church before the mass begins, so that is that). It would feel like a small Master chef competition for my Mom to feed me those days.
But when it comes to the Holy Week things take a drastic turn. Those would be days with porridge on most days, no food or one time food on Maundy Thursday's and Good Friday's 😭. But when we were able to afford restaurant food from our pockets, we sneak around during those days as well and enjoy restaurant food from Baghdad (not the actual place, but a restaurant near our place)
The Jackfruit tradition is something I crave for even today. We used to have a lot of Jackfruit trees in our neighbourhood (our home and our uncle's houses). There is one special tree in my eldest uncle's (Mootha Mama as we used to call) plot is known around the neighbourhood for its deliciousness. Although everyone from our family would get some fruits to their homes, I used to be the privileged one. He used to come home for lunch break from the shop he owns, and before lunch we do some magic. He climbs the tree with a sickle and a rope and used to stay beneath the tree. Once he finds the good fruit he wraps or ties the rope around it and asks me to hold the other end of the rope tightly with any branch as pulley. Once he checks the tension of the rope and is satisfied, he cuts the stem of the fruit and then I carefully lower it down without it breaking. This is a technique which I had aced during my school and college days. Since he had diabetes, he opens the jackfruit skilfully and plates it for me. Most days I used to eat half of the entire fruit myself for lunch. As I write this, the last few years my Uncle is no longer able to climb trees, his shop is closed and is kind of retired and rests at home.
Veggies used to be the thing that I hate the most (which I'm regretting now). My dad (from the very little memories I have) used to force feed me vegetables, it could be the reason I started hating them (which I can't be sure). But my mom used to have this unique technique of making clear soups which I need to drink before a most delicious meal that I would crave for. And some of the soups would be from spinach, rice and even ladysfinger (yup 😩 you heard it right) . I usually try to do a bottoms-up for those soups once they are cooled down. The memories I have tell me that it used to look my alien mucuses. (yuck). But I'm very grateful that I got some nutrients in that way at least.
There was also a weird behaviour of having early breakfast. My mom being an early riser there could be days that I would also get up early and ask for breakfast. Somedays early would mean 4.30am too. There had been days when my brother would yell at me for disturbing his sleep, because I used to turn on the TV while eating breakfast and he used to sleep in the TV room after his later night binge watching.
Today when I see my son and his weird hunger and food palettes, it doesn't amuse me in any way because I used to be that kid. The days have changed and health has become the top priority than food in itself and I really appreciate those days when I used to have the "Hungry before it's cooked syndrome"
The 2000's
Nagercoil, India
I am remembering those days with appa ... now the jack fruit tree is waiting for you and appa Anna.... every now and then I and amma speak about you and your craze towards jackfruit.....