Every year, to celebrate the Marathi New Year, households hang a rather unusual structure above the main door at home. Made of mango leaves, neem leaves and sugar candy, it’s the first thing families celebrating the New Year put together. But there’s something else that they do with great enthusiasm: plan the day’s meal. The menu’s star ingredient — raw mango.
The Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi New Years fall in the months of March and April, just when the first mangoes of the season arrive. As a result, the fruits are used extensively in the day’s spread. Gudi Padwa, the Marathi New Year, is being celebrated this Sunday. Even as you read this, men and women in the region are shopping for the best raw mangoes in the local market — for, the day’s special meal is not complete without sweet and tangy raw mango panna .
Says Nilima Andhare, a homemaker based in Pune, “The panna is made with boiled raw mangoes. I add jaggery to the pulp and mix it with water until it becomes runny like a sherbet,” she explains. “I serve it with shrikhand poori and potato subzi .”
Then there’s the ambechi dal that Andhare describes as a dish made of soaked channa dal ground with jeera and green chillies, and served with a tempering of mustard and curry leaves. And most importantly, a generous portion of grated raw mango. Although not part of the New Year menu, the dish is served as a snack to people who visit home to take part in the festivities.
The 55-year-old remembers tagging along with her mother and grandmother to go to the market to buy mangoes when she was a little girl. “We went to the Mandai market in Pune,” she remembers. “It was fascinating to see heaps and heaps of mangoes.”
Raw mango features in various forms in the spread for Ugadi, the Kannada and Telugu New Year. “I make a dish called maavinkayi chitranna ,” says Janaki Jayasekaran, who has her roots in Chamarajanagar, Karnataka. “It’s like variety rice — cook rice with a little salt and set it aside to cool. Heat a little oil in a pan to prepare the tempering. And add mustard seeds, channa dal , groundnuts, sliced onion, garlic, and grated mango. Once this cools down, mix it with rice. The chitranna is served at room temperature, like lemon rice,” she adds.
Ugadi Pachadi Photo: Sailaja S NOT FOR REUSE
Ugadi pachadi is the New Year staple in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
It’s a raw concoction of sweet, sour, salty, pungent, astringent, and bitter tastes, and stands for a philosophy that life is a mix of all things agreeable and the not-so-agreeable. Says C Geetha, who hails from Visakhapatnam: “The pachadi has one cup each of cut raw mangoes, banana, and jaggery, quarter cup of tamarind water, two tablespoons of neem flowers, a tablespoon of cut green chillies and salt to taste.”
The dish is served in a watery consistency, and apart from the mango, the tamarind used should also be from the new season, adds Geetha. “It’s the first thing we taste in the New Year,” she says.
In Tamil Nadu, raw mango pachadi is the defining item that’s part of the festivities. “It’s the first dish that’s served on the banana leaf of the puthaandu (New Year) lunch,” says Coimbatore-based Chitra Kannan.
“This is followed by the kootu , curry, vadai , rice, paruppu , sambar , rasam , and payasam .”
The pachadi ’s recipe is something that’s been handed down generations. “My mother makes it, so does my mother-in-law,” says Kannan.
The maanga pachadi is a blend of the six tastes, much like the Ugadi pachadi . Although served for lunch, this dish is best had the next day, according to Kannan. “That’s when all the flavours would’ve seeped in,” she says. It can be had with just about anything, or even just plain, to taste it in its most glorious form. “I would just down them by the bowlful,” she laughs.
