In the summer of 1864, Shrimant Sardar Jagdale of Gwalior came to Pune with his family. Accompanying them were several hundred of their relatives, friends, and helpers. Jagdale had also invited one hundred and fifty-one priests from Benaras. They performed a religious ritual for which he spent several thousand rupees, as reported by the “Jnanaprakash”.
The rituals went on for a month or so near the Belbaug temple during which Jagdale made special arrangements to feed his entourage and priests. Cooks had been summoned from Benaras who cooked a minimum of five sweets every day. A couple of reports appearing in “Jnanaprakash” underlined the fact that the priests and natives of Poona were overwhelmed by Jagdale’s hospitality.
The newspaper did not fail to mention what had pleased the priests the most. “Chincheche sarbat” (tamarind sherbet), “limbache sarbat” (lemon sherbet), “valyache sarbat” (khus sherbet), and “kairiche panhe” (sherbet made of the pulp of raw mango) had been served to priests to make sure they did not lose their cool in the scorching heat of Pune.
The newspaper urged the patrons in Pune to make it a habit of serving such drinks to priests who spent hours reciting prayers in front of the sacred fire of the “yajna”.
Sherbets were served during summers in several households of the nineteenth century Pune, the most popular being “kairiche panhe”. “Chincheche sarbat” was popular in the central parts of India and Maratha noblemen from Gwalior and Indore would often serve the drink to guests when they visited Pune.
{{/usCountry}}Sherbets were served during summers in several households of the nineteenth century Pune, the most popular being “kairiche panhe”. “Chincheche sarbat” was popular in the central parts of India and Maratha noblemen from Gwalior and Indore would often serve the drink to guests when they visited Pune.
{{/usCountry}}“Valyache sarbat” was more popular among the Muslims and was not very popular in the Brahmin households. “Baelache sarbat” (Bengal quince sherbet) was thought to be a good antipyretic. So was “Chandanache sarbat” (sandalwood sherbet). Some affluent Chitpavan Brahmin families of Pune were fond of “kokum sarbat”.
The “kokum” (Garcinia indica) is a plant in the mangosteen family. “Brindab” of the Portuguese, it is a very elegant tree; head generally of a conical form, branches drooping, leaves dark green, shining, and fruit round and smooth, when ripe of a deep purple colour throughout. It has an agreeable acidic flavour. The plants grew in abundance in Konkan and in some parts of Bombay.
The British, initially, were not too aware of the interesting medicinal and culinary uses of the kokum. Concrete oil is obtained from the seeds which was well known and used in Goa. The British believed that the Portuguese used the “oil”, or “kokum butter” as it was known, to adulterate ghee. “The Bombay Courier” carried a report on June 12, 1830, which accused a few European merchants in Bombay of contaminating ghee brought to the city from Poona. The merchants were quick to refute these allegations and mocked the British for their lack of understanding of native food. This little scandal might have been the catalyst required to make kokum the centre of attraction.
A few British memsahibs in Poona made efforts to take a liking to the “drinks of the natives”. Among them was “kokum sarbat”.
Botanical records show that the British first tried to plant kokum plants in Pune in the early 1870s. The experiment was not successful and it was agreed that sending young plants from the Ganeshkhind gardens to Ratnagiri was a better option. The Mangosteen from Poona was grafted on the Kokum tree of the Konkan. I have not been able to find out the outcome of this experiment.
Around that time, lime juice was issued bi-weekly to the British troops and occasionally in special cases to native troops. During summer, the quota was doubled to four times a week. The soldiers were expected to make sherbet for themselves to beat the heat.
A trial was made of kokum for native troops and followers, but with the exception of soldiers from the southern part of India and some men from Poona, who were accustomed to it, nothing would induce them to use it, as they said “it disagreed with them in various ways”.
The fresh “karonda” (”karavanda” in Marathi, Carissa carandas) was another fruit the British tried to get accustomed to. The fruit had a tough skin and like the dried kokum powder, was insoluble in water, and most astringent.
Most British corps units had a coffee shop of some kind, owned and managed by the natives attached to them. In the early 1880s, efforts were made to stock fresh sherbets as made by the natives in these shops. But the troops soon rejected those.
“On Guard” for September 1873 contains an article on “Restorative Aerated Water” by J Fred Pogson. In 1872–73, Pogson had to pass the hot weather in the plains at Poona, and as he had to write a book “Pogson’s Indian Gardening” against time, during the hot months of 1872, he found the mental strain so great that after six hours of work (with the thermometer at 98 deg F) any further concentration of thought was not feasible. He knew from experience that if he drank wine and water, brandy and water, or beer, though his body would feel refreshed, his brain would not respond, and further he would not be able to concentrate on his work. Under the circumstances, he decided on adding some grains (5 to 8) of the Acid Phosphate of Potash to his glass of lemon sherbet (his breakfast beverage), and to his satisfaction, he found that he could work two hours longer, and as his manuscript had to be daily posted the extra work so easily accomplished was most satisfactory.
Pogson repeated his small experiment with kokum sherbet. “The muscles as you know build and repair themselves with Magnesia; so to make good this waste, I added half a teaspoon of Citrate of Magnesia to my glass of kokum sherbet, and I found it to be delicious and sustaining, and both mental and physical exhaustion rapidly disappeared. In 1873, the heat at Poona was great, but thanks to the Potash Phosphate and effervescing Citrate of Magnesia in my kokum sherbet, I got through the most intricate series of mathematical computations, without suffering the slightest inconvenience”, he wrote.
The British government at the time had been contemplating reducing the quota of spirit rations to the army recruits coming to India and Egypt. Opponents of this move believed that if the recruits on enlistment in England, and on the voyage out, were denied spirit rations, the young soldiers would land in India without having acquired the taste for ardent spirits and dram-drinking.
Pogson, aware of the intentions of the British Government, wrote to several officials advocating the use of Phosphate of Potash with kokum sherbet.
Pogson’s experiment soon passed into oblivion. But “kokum sarbat” gained more popularity in Pune among the natives thanks to the newly opened roads connecting the city to Konkan in the early twentieth century. The fruit (both fresh and dried) could then be easily brought to Pune and was no longer limited to rich Chitpavan households. The sherbet soon came to be known as “amrut kokum” because of a ready-to-use syrup of the same name.
The British, after coming to India, took quite some time to adopt and adapt to the local cuisine. But “kokum sarbat” is one fine example that they actively promoted among the Europeans in Pune.
Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com