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Photo: M. Karunakaran

Season’s flavour Vendors know the customers’ pulse

There is a jig in the air with hard working professionals burning the midnight oil to complete the pending projects and students giving their best before breaking off for Christmas vacation.

A delicious recipe of the choicest fruit cut in shape complete with a delicate balance of colour, taste and smell. For people of Guntur, who never miss an opportunity to taste and relish the good things in life, fruit salad is fast becoming a part of their staple diet. From working professionals to industrialists to the college-going youth, the habit has caught on.

Making of a fruit salad is an art that requires a delicate balance of colour, texture, taste, and smell. “Its great to begin the day with a salad made at home. I make my own salad in the morning and have it before leaving for work. I try out different recipes and find each of them different and refreshing,” says Md. Osman, a bank officer.

While fruit salad can be made at home, it has begun to appear in the fruit juice stalls and pushcarts, albeit sold at cheaper rate.

The pushcart vendors decorate their carts with fancy fruits and prepare the salad in a jiffy and offer it all for just Rs.10. The icing on the cake is the topping of honey with a helping of cashew nut.

“We are nearly six-months-old in this new business, which seems to be quite lucrative. Initially, we used to sell only fruits on the Fourth Lane in Arundelpet. A salad cup is sold for Rs.10 and the deal is reasonable, both for the customer and for us,” says Revanth of Revanth Fruit Stall.

In the morning, the man keeps himself busy amidst the crowd in Arundelpet and as the sun sets, he scampers to Brindavan Gardens to cater to the larger crowds near indoor stadium complex.

Most of these vendors make use of conventional fruits, while for topping, a helping of dry fruit and cashew nut and a dash of colour do the trick. “We cut the fruit in the morning and preserve it in the refrigerator. Unlike in the summer, when most people like to beat the searing heat with a fresh salad, the consumption drops drastically in winter,” says Ramesh of Mourya Fruit Juice stall at Chandramouli Nagar.

A couple of sweet apples, a bunch of seedless green grapes, slices of pine apple, two pieces of peeled papaya, a handful of raisins, one or two seasonal fruits will generally do a fruit salad.

Things to be avoided for preparation of a salad include bananas, as they are too squishy, watermelon, as it is too juicy, lemon, tomatoes and mustard. One can always use raspberries, strawberries or other fruits.

Cutting the fruit upright is important and all the seeds, stem should be done away with.

Vertical slices of apples could be complemented with tiny slices of papaya. And lo! Your salad is ready.

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