Word Attack!!

Glorious Aamchoor

April 11, 2008 on 9:08 pm | In Food |

September 16th, 2007

Whenever I went to Vellore, amma (my naani) would call me aside and when no one, specifically my mother, was looking, she’d hand me some aamchoor. How I loved her for that! Aamchoor was something even better than chocolate!

Sour, tart, dripping with salt…a piece of aamchoor could last for more than two hours if you just nibbled at it. And it was something we often did, nibbling at the aamchoor while playing cards with the others, or simply lazing around in the old house in Vellore, or lying down on that huge swing that was there in amma’s house.

As I grew older, however I started liking aamchoor that was dry and not soft and squishy. I wanted to learn how to make it, but every year, during the mango season whenever I’d put out the mango pieces in the sun, they’d magically grow less and less, and even less, until there wasn’t much to dry anyway. Magic being, one of us who would pop a piece or two on our way to ‘check’ it out on the terrace, to shoo away crows ostensibly.

Last week on my trip to Vellore, I had my first bout of car sickness. I MUST be growing older. I’ve never had car sickness ever! But this was awful! Spinning head and squirming insides! They called for a nice, big piece of aamchoor to quell it. But as luck would have it, no one had any.

At our stop in Visharam, there was no aamchoor in chichajan’s house(he’s my mom’s uncle). Then, in Sathvacheri, there was no aamchoor in my aunt’s house either. I was getting desperate and didn’t want to sit in the car at all!

On our way back, we had to stop at khalajan’s house(mom’s youngest sister) who lives in Alathur. I asked her if she had and she said she’ll be right back. She came back with this HUGE bag of aamchoor and gave it all to me!!!

Azeem also loves aamchoor and he was hankering after it. So I told him, we’d split it back in Bangalore. On the way back, I happily nibbled at two pieces and watched disgusted as Saboor popped a whole piece in his mouth. He used to hate aamchoor when he was small, but thats changed now.

Aamchoor was the only thing that helped me out last year when I was pregnant and had such awful digestion problems. On the way back, I asked Zakia aunty how to properly make aamchoor and she gave me instructions. Will post that later in another blog.

Mmm! Right now, I’m fasting and all this talk of aamchoor is literally making my mouth water. I’d better stop right now.