Winter is the time to savour
some of the best local food, served hot and fresh, so this weekend,
you could head to the 15th edition of the Avarebele Mela, also known as
the Avarekai Mela, which began on Friday.
Avarekai or broad
beanshyacinth beans are an important produce of Karnataka, and the
annual mela has become a part of the city's culture along with others
such as the Kadalekai Parishe of Basavanagudi, which gives peanut
growers a chance to showcase their produce. Hosts of avarekai growers
from Hunsur, Magadi, Mulbagal, Nagamangala and Bengaluru come to the
Avarekai Mela to sell their produce without middlemen.
“The main
attraction is the variety of dishes prepared using avarekai,“ says
Geetha Shivakumar, the festival organizer.“Young people are attracted to
fast food. We want them to know tasty snacks can be made using local,
seasonal ingredients such as avarekai. Visitors can try out over 20
kinds of snacks and condiments made of this bean.'' In Karnataka,
the bean is made into curry (avarekalu saaru), salad (avarekalu usli),
added to upma (avarekalu uppittu), and as a flavouring to akki rotti.
Sometimes the outer peel of the seed is taken out and the inner soft
part is used for a variety of dishes. This form is called `hithakabele
avarekalu', which means “pressed hyancinth bean“. According to
Shivakumar, this time the mela will have dishes like hithakavare saaru
(rasam made with the pressed bean), and many inno
vative dishes not traditionally made with it, such as dosa, paayasa,
holige, chikki, cake, jamoon, and flavoured snacks such as pepper
hithakabele, pudina hithakabele, and garlic hithakabele.
“A
special attraction this year is hithakavare halwa and hithakavare honey
jalebi. We expect nearly 2,000 people to visit the mela daily. Nearly 3
to 4 tonnes of avare beans will be sold during the mela,“ says
Shivakumar. The bean is not only a good source of energy (100 gm = 50
kCal) but also contains many B vitamins, and is high in elements such as
calcium and magnesium.
Fest is on from 2nd-14th Jan 2015
