Chow chow !! கத்திரிக்கா கத்திரிக்கா குண்டு கத்திரிக்கா

 

கத்திரிக்கா கத்திரிக்கா குண்டு கத்திரிக்கா

 

எந்த கடையில நீ அரிசி வாங்குற

உன் அழகுல என் உசுர வாங்குற

உம்மை எடை அளவு பாக்கணும் பாக்கணும்

உச்சந்தலைக்கு மேல தூக்கணும் தூக்கணும்

 

Most likely you have heard this song from Duet !!  Ever heard of Chayote (Sechium edule) – you have eaten it !! 

Are you a connoisseur of food ! – how good is your culinary skills – can you identify this (popular!) vegetable !! without seeing the photos and reading the post in full with just the clues ? 

here is a photo of what is called as ‘Bangalore Kathirikkai !’ or Chow-chow.  Chow Chow belongs to the squash family.  In Tamil Nadu, we make koottu of most gourds  - with chow-chow, we make vegetable curry, koottu  or a thuvaiyal and call them a delicacy.   

The foundation stone for  glass house of Lalbagh was laid  by  Prince Albert Victor, heir to the Prince of Wales and was called the Albert Victor Conservatory, but now known as the Glass House. The man behind the idea of the Glass House was John Cameron, Superintendent of Lalbagh. Cameron had a background in botany and had trained at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, then the centre of botanical research in the world.  Lalbagh’s first known plant census, done in 1861, recorded 1033 species. In the first six years that he took charge of Lalbagh, Cameron managed to introduce an average of 160 new plants every year, it is believed that Cameron introduced chow-chow and now we know it as Bengaluru Brinjal.

 
Interesting !
 
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
29.8.2026