Cashews, like many other nuts, grow inside pods that have to be removed. Cashew pods have a particularly vile oil in them. As you will see, the process is incredibly labour intensive. JD says that cashews grown in Australia are sent to India for processing - it's simply too expensive to do it here.
Small stalls along the roadside, a half-dozen in a row, process cashews. Admittedly, these are largely for the benefit of tourists - larger processors would operate elsewhere.
The raw pods are collected. (By the way, the rings on the toes at the top of the picture tell you she is married.)
A cupful or two at a time, they are scorched over a hot fire. The pot they are cooked in has a whole at the bottom to let the released oils drain out.
Once charred satisfactorily, they are tipped out, and smothered with ash and/or water to start cooling them down. The scorched pods are smashed between two rocks to expose the raw kernel.
Later, the husk needs to be rubbed off the nut itself. Although not difficult, it is time-consuming. The nuts at this stage are very soft. (These are the hands of Vingkat, our driver, showing how the husk is rubbed, peeled off).
They are then dried in the sun to form the raw cashews we know and love.
They are sold to tourists at rather marked-up prices, but we got a free show too.
Small stalls along the roadside, a half-dozen in a row, process cashews. Admittedly, these are largely for the benefit of tourists - larger processors would operate elsewhere.
The raw pods are collected. (By the way, the rings on the toes at the top of the picture tell you she is married.)
A cupful or two at a time, they are scorched over a hot fire. The pot they are cooked in has a whole at the bottom to let the released oils drain out.
Once charred satisfactorily, they are tipped out, and smothered with ash and/or water to start cooling them down. The scorched pods are smashed between two rocks to expose the raw kernel.
Later, the husk needs to be rubbed off the nut itself. Although not difficult, it is time-consuming. The nuts at this stage are very soft. (These are the hands of Vingkat, our driver, showing how the husk is rubbed, peeled off).
They are then dried in the sun to form the raw cashews we know and love.
They are sold to tourists at rather marked-up prices, but we got a free show too.
Credit where it's due, it was Gopar who noted that cashews are sent from Oz from India for processing. Something else we learned from our guide Mina today, cashew growing season is from April to June - those roadside cashew processing huts are tourist traps (or more charitably, to entice travelling locals with the prospect of fresh cooked cashews). Still, not bad to get cashews for equivalent of AUD$5 per kg, even after tourist markup!
ReplyDeletePS the rings on toes aren't guaranteed to be symbolic of marriage it turns out. Mina has rings on her toes which symbolise the seafaring history of her people, the Nagarathar, a group who were largely responsible for the Indian presence in Singapore and Malaysia. A very small minority group in Tamil Nadu who nonetheless have a complex history that stretches back some three thousand years!
ReplyDeleteMina's marriage symbol is a gold chain (provided by her parents) with an attached pendant of Lakshmi (provided by her parents-in-law). Incidentally, Mina is married to her maternal uncle, which is the preferred pairing amongst the Nagarathar. So her mother-in-law is also her grandmother! Marriages amongst the Nagarathar clans are by arrangement and are subject to large dowries. In fact the expansive traditional Nagarathar homes have no bedrooms (common sleeping areas only) but have a multitude of rooms dedicated to holding dowries!
Each Nagarathar home also contains a dedicated birthing room where the more and newborn are secluded for two months following the birth, as a way of reducing risk of post-partum infection to mother or child.
The Nagarathar moved from their original homeland in the 1800's due to a tsunami destroying their village and were relocated to Chettinad, where they moved away from their traditional trading lifestyle to banking and finance. They became extremely wealthy but were dispossessed a number of times, most recently by Indira Gandhi who nationalised their banks with out compensation. Notwithstanding these difficulties, the Nagarathar are generally well-off and very well educated - both husband and wife must have a university degree prior to marriage.