This Diwali, I brought in my bestie to be my guest blogger. We decided on some stuff he would like to try, and tell us how he felt about it. Here’s episode # 2 of it.
The surf is up over a Tsunami of saliva when someone mentions the word ‘Guava’. The thoughts of pecking into the pectin-rich superfruit and getting the red rush on cheeks is the stuff good guava flavoured food items do to you. So when a bubble wrapped glass jar of Guava Jam by #MadeInCoorg comes your way, joy should flow like a sparkling champagne right…. Not quite !
With produce of Coorg region synonymous with being fresh and organic, the Charles in me was Dickened of my Great expectations when slipped the seal off the jar to discover a mundane slab of gelatin that didn’t even greet me with the whiff of a pink fleshy wild guava growing in the tropical Blue Mountains of Madikeri.
There was no fruit pulp in the jelly (I refuse to call it a jam as it was quite dour in flavor quotient and didn’t feel fruity enough). The guava-ness of the deal was limited to the artificial essence and a pale yellow colour, something that could have been easily replicated in Choonabhatti of Mumbai; quite undeserving of the ‘Made in Coorg’ label.
Maybe the exotic flavours of indigenous fruits like Guava and Jackfruit are close to my heart, and when I hear them on any food item I grab it without a second thought. But there was nothing special about this Guava Jam to merit even a second serving.