With the blessings of rain God, we had a great day at the farms yesterday. Blessings because it didn’t rain yesterday and it rained enough(or maybe not) to give us some good amount of naturally grown wild greens for the meal.

We reached the farm by 10.30 in the morning. I remembered the last visit to Anemane which was exactly a year back. I was so happy to be back at this serene place. This time we met Rajappa, who helped us with the identification and beyond with greens, Arun who photographed for documenting and is also well aware of the plant diversity, and our lovely friend & the proud owner of Anemane, Rama ji and her son, Viku.

Being the basket holder(of the greens), I could get a closer look of greens and click them before Rajappa harvested it for lunch. I had the strict instructions from Ramaji not to bend over to click as the greens might fall and our lunch might end up in hunger. So I made sure to clutch the basket between my arms, take pics and note down the Kannada names from Rajappa & the botanical names from Arun. Not an easy job, you know 😁.

The monsoon has definitely spun its magic here! We shared the knowledge while finding new greens. The little one from our group picked the wilds, the dried pods of gulmohar, touched the touch me nots, and applied some teak tree leaves color too as mehndi 😀

We munched on some berries of #kadukaribevu (Clausena anisata) which was citrusy, sweet and slightly sour. Rajappa was very swift in identifying and collecting the greens. He said what would go well for our lunch & what not! Rama ji also reminded us not to over harvest as it may harm its regrowth, which in turn will tamper the ecosystem.

Post harvesting, we washed(a gentle one as they were so fresh) and chopped the greens for our main dish. We cleaned the #cassava and after dicing we dropped it in the vessel of boiling water kept on the fire wood stove along with some freshly harvested young turmeric, ginger & bay leaves. The greens were cooked along with turmeric, curry leaves, bird eye chillies and some chives. We also prepared some Ila Adai or the patholi with normal idli batter and jaggery in the turmeric leaves. No oil, tadka, any of the powders or spices! Ramaji shared her homemade pickled black pepper for that extra kick for those who needed it. We cooked the lunch with very few vessels & accessories.

We made lunch plates with Palash leaves while teak leaves were used for for other purposes. We had carried our own water bottles. The leaves were mashed well for the maximum flavour and it was served along with the well cooked cassava aka tapioca. A very unusual combination right? The smoky flavour just gave us those memories of childhood- our parents or grand parents used to cook similar way!

We all bid bye after a tea made with dried palash flowers, promising to meet again very soon for such memorable gathering.