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ORIGIN STORY
Kokum
- What is Kokum?
- Kokum is the fruit of a tree indigenous to the tropical rain forests of the South Indian Western Ghats, a large portion of which is Konkan.
- Discovery
- Thousands of years back, the people of India first discovered it in Mumbai and then used this beautiful ornamental fruit tree for an array of needs and wants.
- Kokum has always been integral to these people and used in the historic practice of Ayurvedic medicine.
- Look and Taste
- It has dark red colour and a pleasant, tangy-sweet taste. The seeds of the fruit have a white coloured fleshy coating on it. When the fruit is ripe, it's colour becomes a little transparent.
- The inside of the kokum fruit looks like this:
- Ways To Use It In Cooking
- It's used as a slightly sour spice in Maharashtrian recipes and is a preferred substitute for imli in curries and other dishes from the Konkan region.
- It is also used in Gujarati Dal to add flavour and tartness to it. It’s also used as a souring agent in curries.
- Locals like to eat it raw
- They take out the tiny cap of the fruit and push some salt in with the help of a toothpick.
- Then they rotate it few times to mix the salt with the seeds of the fruit and suck the juice from the Kokum.
