Tangy Buds

Elandha vada is a traditional nutritional snack that is fast disappearing from our food basket.

- Meenakshi Sushma

MY FATHER used to narrate a story about a fruit when he was studying in Vellore, a district in Tamil Nadu. He and his school friends would often sneak out of the house to buy elandha vada, which was a popular snack during 1960s and 1970s, and even before that. His parents would not allow him as they were concerned about hygiene—the ripened fruits often contain small worms that need to be removed and washed before eating. But my dad and his friends would still go out and buy it from petty shops near the school. When my grandmother got to know about this, she herself started making the snack at home. She would just add dried chilies, which prevents fungal growth.

Landscape and varieties

The snack is prepared with a fruit (ziziphus mauritiana), and it is known by many names—the Indian jujube in English, elandha pazham in Tamil and ber in Hindi, among others. The fruit, which resembles small apples, grows on a tree that is drought-resistant. It is a crop recommended for arid and semi-arid areas. The fruit is red in colour and ripens from December to March.