Goodness of Guavas
EAT IT RAW, SPREAD IT ON TOAST,COOK IT IN A CURRY OR BAKE IT FOR A DESSERT — THE HUMBLE PERU HAS BEEN CROWNED THE WORLD'S HEALTHIEST FRUIT,
I had mixed feelings about recent reports which crowned the guava as the healthiest of fruits, with the highest concentrations of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. On the one hand it was good that such an accolade was going not to expensive or hard-to-get fruits like mangosteens or blueberries, or even relatively costly apples, but the humble Peru that in season is available piled high on carts at street corners, both green ones, to be eaten with salt and chilli, and riper yellow ones, to be eaten alone.
So common is the guava in India — Ranjit Singh and SK Saxena say it is the fourth-largest fruit crop, in terms of both acreage and quantity — that it can be surprising to learn that it is not native here. Its origin is in South America, but it was one of the first plants from the New World to reach India, presumably through the Portuguese, with the first clear reference to it in 1673.
Guavas grow very easily, to the extent that they are treated as weeds in Latin America, flourishing even on poor soils, so they must have spread rapidly across India. Many varieties have been developed here, but the most famous are those from Allahabad. Jawaharlal Nehru's family had large guava orchards there and he loved the fruit. "Yesterday we received a parcel of guavas which I suppose you had sent. They are excellent and maintain worthily the reputation of Allahabad," he wrote to one correspondent.
Nehru seems to have liked guavas for themselves, but many others ate them for health reasons (so the recent findings are hardly new). It was one thing Gandhi and Jinnah could agree on — "One can subsist quite well on peanuts taken with guavas," Gandhi wrote to a friend (though this is one diet he didn't follow for any extended time), while Begum Rana Liaquat Ali Khan noted how Jinnah believed that guavas purified the blood, and she made sure always to have some around when he visited.
Another point in favour of guavas is that all this healthfulness comes in a wonderfully scented package. All too often, natural products with really healthy reputations have really off-putting scents or flavours, like jamun, which I find both astringent and metallic, or bael, with its faint note of vomit. Guava, by contrast, has an intoxicatingly spicy smell, a reminder that its family, the Myrtaceae, also includes plants like clove, allspice and eucalyptus which specialise in producing strongly aromatic oils.
In his book The Fruit Hunters, Adam Leith Gollner has a rather risqué story of a friend who grew up with guavas, but then lived for years in a country where they were scarce. So when his girlfriend surprised him with one, he freaked out and "triumphantly carried it into bed and curled up with it. After deeply inhaling its fragrance, he started kissing it like a long-lost lover and rubbing it all over himself. "I made love to that guava," he groaned. I like the smell of guavas, if not to that extent, but I have to admit that the reason for my mixed feelings about them is that, despite knowing all its benefits and acknowledging its attractions, I really don't much like their taste. I have tried to convince myself otherwise, biting into innumerable guavas, telling myself I have to like something that so many people do. And nearly every time I get a particular note, a kind of prickly greenness, perhaps the sort of unpleasantly intrusive pungency that cloves can have, which I just never take to.
It is possible this has to do with white fleshed variety that is most commonly available. The pink fleshed kinds, which have more limited distribution, do have a more delicate taste. Nehru used these as an example of one of the varieties of Indian socialists, white on the outside, red within; then there were the beetroot kind, red inside and out: and finally the radish kind, red outside, white inside, in which category he placed most Congressmen!
The seeds are certainly part of the problem. Guavas have really annoying and inescapable seeds, too numerous and small to cut or spit out with ease, but too large and hard to ignore. Unlike the small seeds of many berries, which may lodge in an unsightly way between our teeth, but can be ignored until its time for flossing, guava seeds manage both to get between our teeth and then persistently announce their presence, requiring instant action to remove them.
But recently, on a visit to Trikaya Agro's farm at Talegaon, I tried a seedless variety they were growing and it was one of the best guavas I ever ate, with a crisp green apple note. But even here, I could only eat a few pieces before that prickly taste returned, and I have to conclude it's a personal problem I have with guavas. Recently though I had a revelation — my problem was only with fresh guavas, and if I made sure to eat them cooked, then I could enjoy them to the full.
This explained why, for all my distaste for guavas, I adore the guava syrup made by Naturellement in Auroville, a pink-brown liquid with a wonderfully full, fruity taste. Or there's the guava jelly made by Bhuira and sold by Fabindia, which is a luscious, wobbly-set preserve perfect on hot toast in the morning. And guava paste (or cheese, as it's sometimes called), which many aunties in my suburb of Bandra in Mumbai must be cooking up now, is my favourite of all the sweets they make for Christmas.
Perhaps even better than these though is using guava as a vegetable. Cooking gets rid of that prickly note, but retains the spiciness, which suits it for Indian cooking, along with a fruity sweetness that is not overbearing, but just enough to give it some surprise. Jane Grigson has a delicious sounding recipe for a salad of fruit and guava, and a cousin of mine makes a lovely guava raita, but I think the best example is the guava curry made by Jains in Gujarat.
The fruit is a useful addition to their vegetable basket that excludes tubers, so it serves something like carrots in giving a sweet-savoury taste, but with a more melting texture. Swati Snacks in Mumbai makes a version that it pairs with methi roti that is in its layers of flavours, sweet, salty, bitter, savoury, one of the most amazing restaurant dishes in the city.
Till recently this was my top guava dish, but then I came across a recipe for a stuffed guava dessert in one of Diana Kennedy's books on Mexican food. This seemed worth trying since Mexico may well be where guavas were first cultivated, and it makes a wide variety of dishes from them. These are mostly variations on guava paste, but this one involved gently poaching halved guavas in a light syrup, then scooping out the centres (thereby getting rid of most of the seeds). The guava cups that result (which can be bought ready canned in Mexico) can be stuffed with different fillings, with cream cheese being a popular one. But in this recipe, Guayabas Relenas de Cocada, a second, thicker syrup was made and then, just before it began to caramelise, freshly grated coconut was mixed in, cooked for five minutes, and then orange juice, orange zest (grated orange skin), lime juice and a couple of egg yolks were added, and the whole lot cooked till almost dry. When I made this what resulted was a delicious dark golden paste, where the richness of the coconut and yolks were balanced by the citrus juices.
But the real magic happened when spoons of this were stuffed into the guava shells and the whole lot cooked in the oven just till lightly browned. What resulted was a simply stunning dessert that was rich and sweet, yet also fresh and fruity, with a perfect contrast between filling and the guava container, that was as firm, yet yielding as any pastry, but much healthier, of course, and tastier too. It was a simple dessert, yet fancy enough to serve up for any occasion, and the way to make me grateful for the goodness of guavas.
- Vikram Doctor ETCD11N1111
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