From bejjala pulusu to pachadi: Cooking with gourds, peel and all
The Hindu
‘In my Andhra family, we routinely ate a lot of gourd, as pappucharu, pachadi, pulusu or paala koora’
If I had to dredge up a memory about sorakai (bottle gourd), it would have to be the one about how I ate koottu made with it day in and day out for three years in my hostel mess — only to find out later that it wasn’t. The vegetable in question alternated between ash gourd and chow chow. I had never heard of chow chow in my growing up years in Andhra Pradesh, but sorakai made a regular appearance on the dining table at home.
How does one recreate a dish from memory when they weren’t curious about it as a child? I recently got the gift of a tender, round bottle gourd that reminded me of my grandmother, of kitchen gardens, and the door opening to the sight of an avuncular relative, motorcycle key dangling from his fingers, outstretched hands holding the rather sizeable, pot-like vegetable.
Grandmother would grin, saying, “If it’s you, I know it will be another sorakai. Give my regards to your mother.” And with this flashback, one is consuming, along with the sorakai, the past all over again. Ammamma and her gap-toothed smile, the soft fuzz on the gourd, the ’80s, when we ate only at home, and the many foods that went out with the people who cooked them.