![]() This was from the Hanging Gardens in Bombay. And it was his great-grandfather, Cawasji Patel, who brought the first chikoo plant to Gholvad in 1920. He owns one of most prestigious chikoo wadis in Gholvad. Rohinton is one of the 50-odd Parsi-Irani chikoo farmers left in the area. Incredibly, despite the environmental changes, the soil and climate, the proximity of the sea and mountains, still favour the growth of chikoos in Dahanu and Gholvad. And now there must exist not more than 50 of them in the coastal belt who continue farming chikoos. Many of the Parsi-Irani chikoo farmers have migrated to other cities and different professions. At one time, the economy of Dahanu and Gholvad survived on the chikoo. The chikoo tree is a sturdy and rugged thing, it can survive in the harshest conditions, and does not need any special maintenance. The chikoo fruit starts growing from the third year of the tree’s life but this is not fit for the table. It takes upto 12 years before a chikoo tree is ready to bear fruit that can be commercially sold. Ripe chikoos can be kept in the fridge for upto a month. Instead, leave the fruit to ripen for upto a week in a fruit bowl. CHIKOO TASTE FULLUnripe fruit is full of tannin and the flesh is unpleasantly grainy and mouth-puckeringly unpalatable. CHIKOO TASTE SKINThe unripe fruit has smooth skin with a greenish tinge. Ripe chikoos have wrinkled brown skin that gives slightly when pressed. The ripe fruit has rough, light-brown skin outside inside, the flesh is honey-coloured, sweet and luscious with a core containing inedible, hard black seeds. The chikoo taste, you know, resembles that of vanilla-flavoured banana custard. India is said to have got the fruit from Spain. This year, they have a crop in July!Įlsewhere in the world, the chikoo is known as sapodilla, and the drab oval fruit traces its origin to Central America. Now, with environmental changes, which they blame upon the BSES’ thermal plant on the Dahanu coastline, the chikoo season is unpredictable. Earlier, the Gholvad and Dahanu chikoo farmers had three crops of the fruit every year. Every evening during the season, trainloads of their chikoos depart from the station for Bombay, from where it enters the fruit and vegetable markets and goes up for sale. They live in a huge and rambling planter’s house a short distance away from the Gholvad Railway Station and zip about their vast chikoo wadi on an old 350cc Matchless motorcycle. ROHINTON and Ruby Batliwala are Gholvad’s popular Parsi-Irani chikoo farmers. UpperCrust halts at the sleepy and quaint railway station here and explores the chikoo orchards of these farmers. Gholvad is where the Irani agriculturists of Maharashtra grow chikoos. Upper Crust ::: India's food, wine and style magazine ![]()
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