The woodapple or elephant apple is a jungle fruit about the size of an orange from India and Sri Lanka. The shell is hard and woody, not surprisingly, and rough grey in appearance. The best way to get into it, rather as for a coconut, is by throwing it onto a concrete floor. It can be eaten raw or mashed with sugar and water to make into sherbets. The pulp is used, grated, with chilli powder, onions, salt and lime juice to make a sour sambal. It is also known as the elephant apple because elephants are thought to consume the woodapple whole. When their droppings are examined they are found to contain whole shells which, when opened, are found to be empty of their contents. Could it be that the elephant digests the pulp without the shell?
Dry unleavened bread usually made from wheat flour, salt and water, cooked on a tawa. Common in the North of India.
Cottage cheese made from curdled bottled milk, like a cross between Ricotta and tofu. It can be fried and curried.
This is a misnomer left over from Anglo-India now indicates meat, mainly chicken, or prawn beaten into a long flat oval, coated in egg and breadcrumbs and fried until crisp.
Coconut. The fresh coconuts in the picture are sold by the vendor from his bike. Siddharth Dasgupta photographed this in Kolkata and said that he woulod cut the mouth of the coconut and provide a straw. There were two sizes, sold in October 2010 for US 40 cents or 50 cents.
Golden Sixthread Tesselfish. A silvery estuarine fish which shoals around reefs, rather similar in appearance to a grey mullet. It is a bottom-feeder, feeding on small crustaceans and bottom-living organisms, adding to its own flavour. It is sold in Bengal and Bangladesh fresh, frozen, dried and salted.
