This
is one of the farm's main crops... any guesses ... its a cashew nut.The climate of Goa is excellent for growing spices and Judith and I visited one spice farm. It had many of the same spices as the one Andy and I had seen in Kerala, but it was a different time of year so I could see some different items.
This
is one of the farm's main crops... any guesses ... its a cashew nut.
Each fruit produces just one nut, below it, which is why cashews are so expensive. The nut has an soft outer coating and skin, which is acidic and needs removing before we can eat the nut, hence why they always come shelled.
The
fruits are edible but perish very quickly so tend to be fermented and then
distilled to produce a local liquor called Fenny.
Pods
of Vanilla
This
man is starting to climb up a betel tree, betel nuts as used in India as a basis
for paan, a chewing snack. The nut has many similar properties to
nicotine, providing an induced high, but also the same drawbacks as it causes
cancer.
The trees are very tall and slender, with the nuts up in the canopy its is necessary to climb the tree to collect the nuts.
To
save energy and speed up harvesting the climber will cause the slender trunk to
sway and bend so that he can reach the next tree and the hop over. He has
a partner on the ground to collect the nuts.
A
kitten at the farm, he has the very typical lean face of Indian cats.