Palmyra Palm - Padhini

Before my Indian holiday becomes a vague memory, I plan to post them. On the way to Aliyar dam, we saw many padhini sellers by the road side. It brought back my childhood memories and told my kid how we used to force our grandpa to buy the sweet padhini at night. In those days, they used to sell it in push carts, but now the peddlers are modernized...

Padhini or pathanir is the palm sap extracted from the barks of Indian Palmyra palm tree. Mostly, villagers extract the palm sap directly in a mud pot so that it gets fermented and becomes kallu or toddy, which is alcoholic. For padhini, the collecting mud pot is coated with chunnambu (edible soda lime calcium) so that the extracted sap is sweet and non-alcoholic. Traditionally, padhini is served in palm leaf bowls.

Optionally you can add nungu as well.

Somewhere I've heard nungu is ice apple in English, but am not sure. The drink is delicious and refreshing. Finally, when I asked if the vendor sold kallu, he just pointed at a plastic bottle hanging in his motorcycle...

Well, none of us dared to try it...