Probably no other vegetable has been belittled as much as our humble podalangai. One dismisses off something trivial as ‘periya podalangai samachaaram.’
Chithappa listens to vegetable cure programs early morning in TV. Recently he listened to the benefits of snake gourd and ridge gourd. So you can imagine, how many times, this week we had podalangai. I even ended up having to taste podalangai chutney for idlis, for the first time in my life history.
Of course, I like it as a convenience vegetable, easy on hands to chop, cooks in 3 minutes and a podalangai kootu, podalangai poriyal, or podalangai paruppu usili should be ready in 5 mins. But any day, variety is the spice of life. And ya, spices to be added occasionally.
What was surprising was the medical benefits:
It is useful apart from treating jaundice, diabetes, helping intestinal movements, it also helps in obesity. The leaner the vegetable that we eat, the leaner we get. :-
Snakegourd is a good source of minerals like magnesium, calcium, and phosphorus.
It has a cooling effect on body, so most suited for pitta.
Philosophical Vegetable
Probably snake gourd is the only vegetable, that can join the league of typical snake-rope erroneous attribution of adhyāsa. A reverse one probably, since once the veil of ignorance is removed, the end state is not all that pleasant. Most of us would remember Rajini, his son-in-law, janakaraj’s movie comedy scenes with the snake around the neck mistaken to be podalangai.
I prefer podalangai poriyal crunchy and fresh light green with bright yellow channa dal with a liberal dose of shredded coconut.
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