Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/75

 article for bread-making, is rarely, if ever, used. Chana, or gram as it is called by the Anglo-Indians, is sometimes used for the same purpose, either in combination with or without wheat. It closely resembles peas in taste and shape. This brings me to the various kinds of pulses for soup-making, or dal. Gram, peas, lentils, haricot beans, tuar, mug, muth, urad are the chief pulses used for dal. Of these, I think, tuar heads the list in popularity. Both these kinds of foods are chiefly used when dried. Now I come to the green vegetables. It would be useless to give you names of all the vegetables. They are so numerous that I am sure there are many of them that I do not know. The soil of India is so rich that it can produce any vegetable you like. So we may safely say that with a proper knowledge of agriculture, the Indian soil may be made to produce any vegetable to be found on earth.

There now remains fruit and nuts. I am sorry to say that the proper value of fruits is not known in India. Though it is used in abundance, it is used rather as a luxury than anything else. It is used more for the sake of its palatable taste than of health. Therefore, we do not get such valuable fruits as oranges, apples, etc., in plenty; hence they are available only to the rich. But we get plenty of seasonal fruits and dried fruits. Summer in India, as everywhere, is the best season for the former. Of these, the mango is the most important. It is the most delicious fruit I have yet tasted. Some have placed the pineapple at the top of the list; but a great majority of those who have tasted the mango vote in its favour. It remains in season for three months, when it is very cheap, and consequently both the rich and the poor can enjoy it. I have heard that some even live on mangoes--of course, only while they are in season. But, unfortunately, the mango is a fruit that will not keep long in a good condition. It resembles the peach in taste, and is a stone-fruit. It is often as big as a small melon. That brings us to the melons, which are also plentiful in summer. They are far superior to what we get here. However, I must not inflict any more names of fruits on you; suffice it to say that India produces innumerable varieties of seasonal fruits, which do not keep long. All these fruits are available to the poor; the pity is that they never make a meal of these fruits. Generally, we believe that fruit causes fever, diarrhoea, etc. In summer, when we always dread cholera, authorities prohibit -- rightly, too, in many cases--the sale of melons and other such fruits. As for dried fruits, we get almost all the varieties that are to be had here. Of nuts we get some varieties which you do not get here; on the other hand, some that are to be had here are not seen in India. Nuts are