The Ancient Art of Making Gurrha

I got back last weekend from Pakistan, and now you remind me of the gurrh that I should have tried!!! Actually, the oranges in Pakistan were sweeter than any gurrh this time of the year. And the roses were humungous, the flowerbeds brilliant and the sweet-peas on rope trellises at the edge of sunny, green lawns announced that all was well with the world. (I get poetic sometimes).

Wonderful zeejah. I heard somewhere that you are also the undercover author of the social butterfliy diaries in Friday Times. If you are, I must tell you that those articles have VERY often pulled me through rough exam weeks.

Anyhow, I liked the fact that you called it ``gurrhA`` instead of gurr. The pathan pronuciation, and I should say teh REAL pronunciation. :)

YEAH PUKHTUNWALI!

Thanks again for the article. Took me home for 5 beautiful minutes.

cheers

Haniya

hey where`s my reply i posted this afternoon????

Reply : Urstruly & shirin

I remember the time when i didnt like mangoes either. I would eat falsas, bairs, jaman, kachay amruds everything but not mangoes (God knows what was wrong with me???)But now i am actually looking forward to summers and mangoes and water melons and `Rauh`...After reading all these ramblings about gurr from all these ppl, i feel as i have missed out on something good in my life yet again (first being mangoes)so gurr here i come...!!!

URSTRULY #

Uff ! yeh key Kar To Aap Ney Hamain Pareshan Kar Diya ! Chalein Bhijwaien Phir Aam Detroit Sey ...

sa:)

Shirin

No mango-hater or even one who is indifferent to them can by my friend. Hamari aap ki nahiN ban sakti ji :)

bakait - i intend to try it this weekend : )

aicha

hmmm this sweet trip dwon memory lane has made everyone forget the after-affects of gurhh-indulgence

aicha

Reply #: 13 ,aicha

Gurh fried in ghe is one of the tastiest things I have ever come across. The trick is to make ghee hot and then dip pieces of gurh in it for a short time.

In my part of india, especially in the villages, it was rude to serve water to a guest without a piece of gurh..... and fried gurh was for an especially honoured guest.

Bakait

Pankaj #21

No denigration intended really! :-)

But visit Bengal (whichever side) in winter and ask for `khajur gurh`. Once you taste it, I shall effortlessly rest my case. :)

RE: Urstruly & mangoes !

Shoot me if you want , but I guess I am the odd ball who does not have a passion for mangoes any more! There is a reason behind it .As a child and in my growing up years I loved mangoes.In fact when we lived in Bangladesh , in the cool evenings of the mango season, the mangoes would be immersed in a huge tub, with ice cold water , and blocks of ice , and all of us parents and kids, would spread around on the daree in the garden, and just eat mangoes till we almost regurgitated.Any guests who came would join in. When i moved to karachi, somehow with life`s faster pace this tradition was very quickly forgotten. Come mango season , there were everyone`s favourites in the fridge , but somehow I missed the ritual of the earlier days , so the enthiusiasm was slowing down. However then there was another ritual .In Ramazan, just a little before Iftar, my father would come into the kitchen, ask ``Abdul `` [ our man Higgins ] to slice the mangoes , and get the blender and all ready for him. By the second day, this art had been fine tuned to precision, and Abba would go into the kitchen and make tall glasses of mango shakes [ we called them mango fool for some reason ] I loved my mangoes now in that form , I guess because their was a personal touch to the process .Well we all grew up, and everyone started watching their waist lines, so the mango shake fervour just sizzled out. When I got married , my husband never liked mangoes , and like the saying goes `` Aam to bahut sey honae chahiyae aur bahut meethae ] ! well that theory did not hold good anymore in my house , and so slowly and gradually mangoe buying was restricted til my fruit wala literally begged me `` bajee aaaj to ley jain. ab to mausum bhee janae wala hai ``.So I would buy a few , and they would just lie around , till i decided to make trifle out of them , so that they did not land up in a gulloed form in the trash can. My kids are also not mangoe freaks , so I guess over time I do not like mangoes any more, or maybe just have beEn weaned of them. So maybe that is the reason i did not mention mangoes in the list of my favourite fruits. To top it all the variety we get here in canada , has put me off more ! and the price for the junky imports.

Well the entire atmosphere has to be there to having mangoes .It is not like a cup of tea `` jo jaldee mein karhae karhae pee saktae hain ``.

Cheers ,

Shirin

Neptune

C`mon buddy, dont you tell us the gurrh from sugarcane is of lower quality :-) Where do you get gurh from date palm.

Cheers

Shirin! I will never forgive you for not mentioning mangoes even for once. How could you miss that? Did you know that Adam was expelled from heaven because he couldnt resist eating mangoes. I think Pakistan should be nick-named as the ``mango country``. We are blessed arn`t we. One of these days I will go to Pakistan in July, which I havent dared since I came here. In our part of Punjab the temperatures go upto 55 and 58 C. The things we do for love (of mangoes).

The best gurh I believe comes not from Sugarcane but from the date palm tree. The sap is tapped from the stem and boiled to yield three distinct grades of the gurh:

1) The liquid first boil - the consistency of honey and bursting with unbelievable flavours. Notoriously unstable but a part of the must-have delights of the winter.

2) The version after the second boil - thick and viscous - still packing a big punch in the flavours department.

3) The solid `patali` - This is the solid end product. Sold as discs of fragrant gurh, this has been immortalised in the movie `saudagar`.

I believe, wherever the date palm version is available, the sugarcane gurh is usually looked down as the poor cousin in the flavour department.

Dear Urstruly # 16

That was great to read ! Being a through and through Karachite, I guess I have missed out on a lot of fun happenings in the Punjab countryside. However ``Beir `` .. uff !! my favourite . the small red wrinked ones , were God`s gift to earth for me !even the green ones were nice , but the red ones are still my all time favourite.Along with that jamuns, falsas, green kacha amruds, ohhh , this is becoming painfully depressing as I cannot get them here !sometimes we can get the green kacha amruds from china town , very occassionally though , but the rest is just a dream now ....

When we were growing up, we used to visit my Uncle`s lands in Badin [Sindh] very regularly .However the atmosphere was very different .Sugar cane was grown there , but then just cut by the Harees [ workers on the farm ] and sold to the sugar factory [Fauji Foundation ] The Gurrh episode was bypassed .However another beautiful site was the `` sarsoon `` planted for miles and miles .Did it look pretty glistening in the morning sun. We cousins would all go for bullock rides , and swim in the afternoons in the single ``nehr `` muddy water which well served for the swimming pool .

For lunch the harees would pluck fresh sarsoon, and we would have ``sarsoon and sag `` with hot naans off the tandoor .Usually as a feast a few chicken would be sacrificed , so there was `` murghee ka salan for the main Entree !

In the evening after it got dark, the women folk would all come in their very trendy backless , colorful ajrak cholees and ghagras , and do a wonderful dance while their men played the drums .This was the highlight of the day for me , as I watched these graceful ladies dance in their colorful hip attire.....

I wish canada did not have such strict policies of bringing in food !

does anyone like ``Bakar khani`s`` with their morning cup of tea ? another great one ....

now let me roll back to Gurrh !!

Cheers ,

Shirin

Actually Urstruly, i was going to say the same (almost) about the chowk editors who mangled the article ... or do i write so jerkily?...:)