Friday, February 22, 2008

Paan-wala....

Betel Leaf, known commonly as paan or beeda (in Tamil), veeda (in Marathi) or vettila (in Malayalam), viLedele (in Kannada ) is a type of Indian digestive, which consists of fillings wrapped in a triangular package using leaves of the Betel pepper (Piper betle) and held together with a toothpick or a clove.
Here is a paanwala on avenue road preparing few for his customers around lunchtime, many prefer to chew pan after lunch or tea time…
Paan is chewed as a palate cleanser and a breath freshener. It is also commonly offered to guests and visitors as a sign of hospitality and eaten at cultural events. Paan filling is generally a mixture of various
spices, fruits, and sugar. Paan makers may use mukhwas or tobacco as an ingredient to their paan fillings. Although many types of paan contain betel nuts as a filling, many other types do not. Some other types include what is called sweet paan, where candied fruit and fennel seeds are used.

2 comments:

Sac Bee Fri Feb 22, 11:05:00 AM GMT+5:30  

Hi Rajesh, Nice blog. But one correction in this particular blog. Betel leaf is called viLedele in Kannada and not sonf. Sonf is the one which resembles cumin seeds and is used as one of the ingredients when making beeda.

Unknown Fri Feb 22, 12:11:00 PM GMT+5:30  

Thanks Sachin, corrected.