Jaggery

• 1. Introduction

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  Jaggery is a block of boiled sugarcane juice, and in many Gujarati communities its name is part of the word for an engagement. The phrase is gol-dhana, which literally means jaggery and coriander seeds. A sweetener has become shorthand for a promise between two families. Jaggery is a traditional sugar eaten across the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and also in North America, Central America, Brazil and Africa. Its colors run from golden brown to dark brown, because nobody separates the molasses from the crystals. Why does a sugar that looks so plain carry so many names? What happens in the pan between cane field and finished block? Why do buyers argue over its color, and why do some prefer palm sap to cane? And how did it earn a place at festivals, in offerings and on everyday tables?

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• 2. A Name With Many Roots

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  The English word jaggery arrived through Portuguese forms such as jágara and jagra. Those were borrowed from Tamil cakkarai or Malayalam cakkara, which in turn come from the Sanskrit śarkarā. Jaggery is a doublet of the word sugar, so the two words share one ancient ancestor.

  Across the subcontinent, the names fall into several families. Sanskrit guḍa gave Hindi and Bengali guṛ, Assamese gur and Marathi guḷ. A Proto-Dravidian root, vell-am, gave Tamil and Malayalam vellam, Telugu bellam, and Kannada and Tulu bella. Sanskrit miṣṭa, meaning sweet, gave mitha in Bhojpuri and mithoi in Assamese. Sinhala hakuru and Dhivehi hakuru descend from śarkarā, as does Nepali sakkhar.

  South of the Himalayas the vocabulary keeps multiplying for palm versions. Malayalam has karuppaṭṭi for jaggery from palm juice, and Tamil has karupaṭṭi. Malayalam even has a separate word, panam kalkaṇḍam, for rock candy made from palm juice.

  Southeast Asia has its own list. Khmer says skor tnaot, Malay says gula melaka, and Indonesian says gula jawa or gula aren. In Sarawak, gula apong is a variant made from the sap of the nipah palm. The Philippines has panutsá in Tagalog, tagapulot in Ilocano and calamay in Waray. Thai uses separate terms for palm, coconut and cane versions.

  Farther afield it is rapadura in Brazil, piloncillo in Mexico and chancaca in Peru. Panela is the word in Central America, and Swahili speakers say sukari nguuru. Japanese uses kokuto. In Venezuela, the same sweetener goes by papelón, panela or miel de panela.

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• 3. Boiling Down the Juice

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  Beside the cane fields themselves, farmers place their crushers, so the sugar is made almost where it grows. Historically, oxen turned these crushers. Every modern crusher is power-driven. The cut and cleaned cane goes through, and the juice runs into a large vessel.

  Part of that juice moves to a smaller vessel and goes onto a furnace. The heating lasts about an hour. Traditionally the fuel is the dried pulp left over from crushing the cane, so the plant helps cook its own juice.

  Lime goes into the boiling juice. It makes the stray particles rise in a froth, and workers skim that froth off. The juice then thickens until it is about one-third of its starting volume.

  The hot liquid is golden. A worker stirs it constantly and lifts it on a spatula to watch how it falls. If it stretches into many threads, it has fully thickened. If it only drips, it needs more time.

  The liquid then goes into a very large, shallow, flat-bottomed pan. The size is deliberate. Only a thin coat of syrup forms across the bottom, which gives it a wide surface for fast evaporation and cooling. As it cools, it becomes a soft solid, which people mold into whatever shape they want.

  Once molded, jaggery faces its first test, and that test is one of color.

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• 4. Dark or Golden

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  Dark brown jaggery signals that the juice was never clarified, or that it was boiled with its nutrients intact. That is how the source describes the traditional grading. Yet some buyers read dark color as dirt, so some makers clarify the juice to brighten it. The result is a golden-yellow block that the source calls nothing but refined sugar.

  The color scale also invites fraud. Coloured adulterants, which may be toxic, are sometimes added to jaggery to fake the golden hue.

  Natural dark brown jaggery comes from whole cane juice boiled at nearly 200 °C in a large cast iron pan. Makers add a very small amount of food-grade mustard or castor oil to the pan. The hot froth would otherwise spill over the edge. Traces of the oil remain in the finished block. Both oils are laxative, a quality the source says matches that of whole jaggery.

  Chemically, jaggery holds up to 50 percent sucrose, up to 20 percent invert sugars and up to 20 percent moisture. The remainder is insoluble matter such as wood ash, proteins and fibres from crushed cane, called bagasse. Muscovado is a close relative. It is an important sweetener in Portuguese, British and French cooking.

  In a 100 gram portion, jaggery from palm syrup holds 2.5 milligrams of zinc, 11.4 milligrams of iron and 1050 milligrams of potassium.

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• 5. Palm, Cane and Markets

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  Sugar from the sap of the date palm is more prized than cane sugar, and it is harder to find outside the places that make it. The toddy palm is tapped for jaggery in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

  Sri Lanka shows the palm preference most clearly. Syrup from the kithul tree, Caryota urens, is widely used there, and coconut syrup is another source. Sinhalese calls the results kitul hakuru and pol hakuru. In the north, syrup from the palmyrah palm is more common, and Tamil calls it panangkaruppatti. Cane jaggery is considered inferior. So when people in Sri Lanka say jaggery, they generally mean the palm kind.

  In Myanmar, around Bagan and in the central region, toddy syrup is collected only to make jaggery. The syrup starts out translucent white. Cooks boil it until it turns golden brown, and then make it into bite-size pieces.

  India has its own centers of production. Maharashtra is the largest producer and consumer, where the Marathi name is gul. Kolhapur is one of the largest producers and holds a GI Tag, a protected geographic label. Its yellow jaggery is much sought after in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

  Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh has the largest jaggery market in the world, and it also holds a GI Tag. Anakapalle in the Visakhapatnam District of Andhra Pradesh comes next. Kerala has two GI-tagged jaggeries, Central Travancore and Marayoor. Mandya in Karnataka is also known for production.

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• 6. Festival Tables

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  At Makar Sankranti, families make a dessert called tilgul from jaggery. Gujarat has a similar preparation, tal na ladu or tal sankli. In Andhra Pradesh, Sankranti also brings ariselu, a dish the source calls authentic to the state.

  Ugadi, the New Year in Andhra, Telangana and Karnataka, has a dish built on contrast. Ugadi pachadi combines jaggery with five other ingredients, giving six tastes: sweet, sour, salt, tangy, spice and bitter. The mixture symbolizes happiness, disgust, fear, surprise, anger and sadness, and the idea that life contains all of them.

  At Rama Navami, devotees prepare paanakam, a sweet drink of water, jaggery and peppercorns. It is the favorite offering to Lord Rama.

  Tamil Nadu has a long list of offerings. Ellurundai, which are sesame balls, adhirasam and pori vilangu urundai, which are puffed rice balls, are made as prasadam for god. They appear at Puja and at festivals such as Diwali, Tamil New Year and Janmashtami. At the harvest festival of Pongal, also called Thai Pongal, the dish is chakkarai pongal. It is made from rice, milk and jaggery, and Andhra Pradesh has milk pongal and chakkara pongal. In Tamil Nadu, jaggery is also used in religious rituals, in kali, and in fruit salads and payasam offered to the gods.

  In Kerala, jaggery is considered auspicious and is a vital ingredient in many varieties of payasam.

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• 7. Everyday Kitchens

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  In Udupi cuisine, a pinch of jaggery goes into sambar, rasam and other familiar dishes. Gujarati cooks stir it into dāl, where its sweetness balances the spicy, salty and sour notes. South India uses it widely to soften pungent food.

  In rural Maharashtra and Karnataka, a person who comes home after working under the hot sun is handed water and a piece of jaggery. The source presents this as ordinary hospitality, and the sweetness is part of the welcome.

  The byproduct of jaggery making has its own life. Molasses, called kaakavi in Marathi, is used as a sweetener in rural Maharashtra and Karnataka. The source says it holds many minerals not found in ordinary sugar. It is also considered beneficial in traditional Ayurvedic medicine. A Rajasthani or Punjabi dish, gur ke chawal, or jaggery rice, uses it.

  Gujarat makes laddus from wheat flour and jaggery. Maharashtra's well-known puran poli uses jaggery as a sweetener alongside sugar. In Tamil Nadu, jaggery is used only as a sweetener. In rural areas, cane and palm jaggery sweeten drinks, but in cities refined sugar has taken over.

  In Bengali cooking, jaggery goes into sweets with milk and coconut, and it is molded into candy shapes. Karnataka's paayasa, obbattu and unday each call for a different kind of jaggery.

  Odisha's cakes, called piṭhas, rely on jaggery, which Odia calls guda. Kakara pitha holds coconut filings caramelized in it, and guda is mixed with rice flakes called chuda for breakfast. Even some marmalades made from mango and dillenia contain it.

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• 8. Tea, Toffee and Tandoors

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  In some villages of Assam, people drink salty red tea with a cube of gurd, the local word for jaggery, and the habit is popularly called cheleka-chah, or licking tea. The drinker takes a lick of sweetness between sips of salt.

  In Myanmar, htanyet is a sweet for children and adults alike. People eat it in the afternoon with a pot of green tea, and it has been called Burmese chocolate. Depending on the area, toddy palm jaggery is mixed with coconut shreds, jujube puree or sesame. Burmese cooks also use it in savory cooking, where it adds color and richness.

  Jaggery turns up in other sweets too. Cooks make jaggery toffees, and a jaggery cake made with pumpkin preserve, cashew nuts, peanuts and spices. Brewers can use it to make alcoholic drinks such as palm wine.

  Some uses have nothing to do with eating. Mixed in an emulsion with buttermilk and mustard oil, jaggery seasons the inside of tandoor ovens. It is used in the natural dyeing of fabric. In rural parts of Pakistan and India, it is also used in hookahs.

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