A Beloved Bitterness
Text by Charukesi Ramadurai
Tender neem leaves find multiple culinary and cultural uses in India. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Every year in mid April, during the festive day of Tamizh varusha pirappu, or Tamil new year (according to the south Indian lunar calendar), my mother prepares a pachadi, a thick chutney of sorts. It is an amalgam of five tastes – sweet, salt, sour, spice and bitter – to signify that life is a mixed bag of tastes, and to wish that the coming year brings a variety of experiences to our lives. So, along with raw mango (sour), red chilli powder (spice), jaggery (sweet) and salt, there is a generous helping of fresh neem flowers —vepampoo in Tamil — for that hint of bitterness.
As a child, I hated it: why spoil the lip-smacking relish with bitter neem? But many decades later, far away from where I grew up, I look back fondly to the familiar tastes of home and the significance of such meals. Now married to a man from the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh, I discovered that vepampoo is used as one of the ingredients in the new year pachadi there too, as well as in the other south Indian states of Telangana and Karnataka.
Whenever I feel a sore throat coming on or just exhausted after a long day at work, I long for my grandmother’s tangy vepampoo rasam (a thin, tangy broth with tomatoes and neem flowers), eaten with hot rice and a dollop of ghee. Apart from symbolising acceptance of the bitter along with the sweet things in life, neem also has a greater nutritional significance, as science tells us. It is believed to be a rich source of antioxidants. It prevents bacterial growth, and has anti-inflammatory properties, making it a vital ingredient in the Ayurveda and Unani systems of traditional medicine.
Neem is one of five ingredients that feature in a pachadi made for new year celebrations in the southern Indian states.
In four of the five southern Indian states, neem flowers — and to a lesser extent, leaves — are used in various other ways: as a spicy everyday chutney (pachadi or thogayal), in vepampoo kuzhambu (a thicker, more pungent stew laced with tamarind) and as vepampoo sadam, or rice mixed with the flowers lightly roasted in ghee, eaten as a stomach cleanser.
Akash Muralidharan, food designer and convenor of a research project on forgotten foods of India, called The case of the missing vegetables says: “Ingredients like neem and galangal find their place both in the medicinal cabinet as well as the culinary cabinet of communities which use them.” He goes on to explain more ways in which the neem is used as a ‘detox’ ingredient and how this is still a regular health event in many Tamil homes. (Usually a weekend day is devoted to this, with mild food to give the stomach adequate rest). “Veppilai kozhundu, or the tender leaves of neem, are supposed to be good for deworming and generally any kind of stomach upset. The most tender leaves are chosen for this and ground up together to be swallowed raw.”
Muralidharan says that neem flowers also have the most perfect – slightly astringent and fragrant – flavor for dishes like rasam and chutney. I can personally vouch for the added, unique flavour that vepampoo rasam has, when compared to more common rasams made with tomato and lentils. This rasam is thinner in consistency and stands apart in being not as strong on the sour note, instead keeping the focus on the slight astringency that the neem flowers impart. Not surprising then, when Muralidharan says, “I have heard my grandmother say that she would add fresh vepampoo while making panakam (a thin, sweet, summer beverage) just for that shot of astringency within the sweetness.” He then mentions a regret many of us share. “I have heard her talk a lot about neem and [similar] less common kitchen ingredients, but I never took enough interest to ask her more about them,” he says.
In Maharashtra too, the neem flower is crushed with jaggery and given as prasad or offering to the gods for Gudi Padwa or the lunar new year. Further up west, Gujaratis know neem as kadvo limdo (or bitter curry leaves), but it is consumed mainly askadha or a medicinal tisane to treat general infections and stomach disorders.
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It is really in Bengali cuisine that neem leaves shine, especially in spring and early summer. There are a variety of dishes with fried neem leaves cooked with vegetables, the most popular being neem begun or eggplant stir fried with neem leaves. There are other, less common recipes like amba nimba jhola (or chutney with neem and ripe mango), nimba kadha pithau (neem flower patties, very much like banana flower vadais), neem narkel bhaja (sautéed neem leaves with coconut) and neem aloo bhate (mashed potato with neem leaves).
In a traditional Bengali meal, the first course is meant to be bitter – as if to get that out of the way, so to speak. So in season, fried neem leaves are considered a delicacy. Tushita Patel, author of the cookbook Flash in the Pan hypothesizes that the neem variety in Bengal is milder and sweeter than elsewhere, and describes the meal in more detail, “Neem and other bitter agents (such as karela or bitter gourd, or smaller, less bitter ones called uchché) are eaten as the first course of every traditional Bengali lunch. It’s called teto or bitter, which denotes the first course, just like tawk (tart) is the second last course, with mishti or sweet being the last course,” she says. “The reason we eat a bitter course first is because it’s believed to be an appetiser more than all its other stellar qualities like antifungal, antioxidant etc.”
According to Patel, neem is eaten mainly in spring and summer for a couple of reasons, the main one being that the leaves are at their most tender during this season. “The most basic (dish) is neem leaves fried in ghee – neem pata bhaja – eaten as the first course with rice. This is possible only when the leaves are extremely tender and not fully bitter,” she says. Also, summer is the time when the skin breaks out in acne, for which neem is considered a panacea.
Tender neem leaves are often added to shukto, a sophisticated showcase of the Bengali fondness for bitterness.
Patel also explains that when the neem leaves get older and more bitter, they are fried with other vegetables like eggplant in mustard oil to make neem begun, a dish with layered tastes. “The eggplant is sweet, the neem is bitter, and the mustard oil pungent, which makes it a complex and delicious dish,” she says . “But the pinnacle among the neem dishes is neem jhole, a summer vegetable curry where the bittering agent is neem. It’s again eaten as a first course and has summer vegetables like drumstick, sweet potatoes, raw papaya, eggplant, green plantains and bodi (or dried urad dal dumplings).”
Perhaps the most sophisticated showcase of bitter flavours — and neem — in the Bengali lexicon is shukto. Traditionally a delicate dance of bitter ingredients like neem and bitter gourd with other, sweeter, more wintry vegetables like potato, raw banana, flat beans and drumstick pods, shukto has a hallowed place in this regional cuisine.
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Mildly bitter, fragrant neem blossoms have a special place in many Indian regional cuisines.
Bitter foods have always found a special place in Indian cuisine, and purported health benefits apart, are considered actual delicacies in specific cultures. Perhaps the act of swallowing the bitterness adds to the feeling of having done something good for the body; no gain without pain and all that. And as with spice, many people wear tolerance to bitterness as a badge of pride.
Indeed, bitter is one of the six tastes recognised in Indian cuisine – arusuvai in Tamil – along with sweet, sour, salty, spicy and astringent. And so, even before we discovered kale and crucifers like broccoli, there were ingredients like the karela (bitter gourd) , methi (fenugreek, used as leaves and as seeds swallowed whole, in a tadka or sprouted as salad), gavar (cluster beans) and amaranth leaves in our cooking. These vegetables and seeds are chock full of nutrients and have antibacterial, blood purifying and blood sugar controlling properties.
Among these, neem, also margosa, or formally Azadirachta Indica of the mahogany family, is endemic to the Indian subcontinent, and finds a place not just in cuisine but also culture. According to the Neem Foundation, the botanical name derives from azad for free, dirakht, meaning tree, and Indica signifying its Indian origin.
The neem is worshipped as a manifestation of goddess Durga, and in some places, the tree itself is seen as a goddess for its healing properties. In some communities, especially in rural areas, neem leaves are spread on the mattresses of people suffering from measles or chickenpox, since it is believed to be cooling and therapeutic.
Every part of the tree, from the bark to the flowers and leaves has its own uses in India. Neem leaves are crushed and added to juices and potions to balance insulin levels in the body. It is believed to be rich in minerals and antioxidants, making it a skin superpower. Rural folks still use neem twigs (and bark) to clean their teeth, in place of commercially available tooth products. There are also toothpaste brands that come in neem variants, purporting to help fight plaque and gum disease.
Neem products are catching on in the West too, especially as agricultural pesticides, and to a lesser extent, for use in personal hair and skin care products. Patel says, “Neem leaves are also burnt and smoked to keep away insects. When we put away winter clothes and bedding, it’s always lined with neem leaves to keep away insects. Same with silk sarees.” Ayurveda also considers neem to have cooling properties, and is therefore considered a pitta (one of the three doshas, or imbalances in the body, that is to do with metabolic energy) corrector.
According to the Neem Foundation, the word neem is said to have been derived from the Sanskrit nimba, meaning ‘giver of good health’ and has also been called ravisambha, meaning ‘like the sunrays’, again a reference to good health . Muralidharan has a theory about why neem is so popular in some parts of south India, where the tree grows in abundance. “Unlike other vegetables, you don’t have to go to the market and buy neem. It is found on every street, even in a place like Chennai, so you can just gather up fallen flowers and leaves to use in your cooking,” he says, referring to the common practice of spreading a clean cloth under the neem tree to collect the flowers.
Cheap, healthy and with the right combination of ingredients, delicious – what is not to love about neem then?
