Meet the globetrotter, the humble drumstick

This vegetable has ticked off more destinations than most avid travellers. Its stopovers include kitchens in India, Philippines, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, and more.

I have always hailed the way people from Bengal, where I was born, and Kerala, where most Indian expatriates here (UAE) come from, go cahoots in their love for fish, football, and Marxism. After an elaborate Vishu lunch at a neighbour's (from Munnar, the famous hill station in Kerala's Idukki district) a couple of days ago, I realised I may have been missing a far subtler, yet surer drumstick connection between the two states that isn't talked about as much as it is relished on the platters every day.
The green tubes of the drumstick pod or 'shojne data' form not just an important ingredient of a handful of classic Bengali dishes including Shukto - the bittersweet palate cleanser and Chorchori - the favourite 'side' made with vegetables and stalks of leafy greens garnished with mustard or poppy seeds, but also a staple across much of modern-day Bangladesh, Assam, and Tripura where even the humble lentil soup in most households get the drumstick makeover almost on a daily basis.            
Yet the longish, reed thin phalanges like drumstick certainly look the bigger deal amongst Keralites (if not every other South Indian community) as I just discovered while feasting on the Vishu Sadhya made up of a panoply of home-cooked dishes and served on a banana leaf. Be it their Sambhar, Avial, Toran or just another curry, there will always be a piece of the drumstick in there somewhere.
A friend of mine from school, who is now happily settled 'down South' of India in the Telugu-speaking Hyderabad whose culinary landscape is perhaps one of the most diverse in India, in fact put it succinctly the other day when he explained why his Sambhar isn't the same without those chewy, fibrous drumsticks. 
Personally, I have never been a great fan of the fare they serve in India below the Tropic Of Cancer, but every time I sit down to honour an Onam or a Vishu Sadhya invite, I have to admit, I have gotten up fascinated each time, and this time it wasn't any different.
Derived from its Tamil name Murungakai, Moringa is a well-known aphrodisiac and a superfood today (Hawaii in the US are cultivating it and many websites will ship moringa-infused pills and powder for as low as Dh60). However, one of its earliest mentions date back to the 19th century when in his 1878 book 'Culinary Jottings for Madras', Briton Arthur Robert Kenney-Herber raved about moringakai, as he called drumsticks then, while detailing recipes of even continental European breakfast dishes made of baked drumstick seeds and parmesan. Kenney-Herber, who served in the British Indian Army from the age of 19, spent a lot of time writing about Indian cookery for publications like 'The Madras Mail' (credited to be India's first evening newspaper), 'Madras Atheneum' and the Charles Dickens founded 'The Daily News' but his magnum opus is often considered one of best Raj-era cookbook.
However, moringa isn't completely an Indian thing and unlike many typically Indian vegetables that rarely find its use in cuisines outside of the subcontinent, it binds swathes of Asia together, covering India, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and even the Philippines like no other ingredient.
So be it Dunt-dalun chin-yei, the watery Burmese drumstick sour soup or the traditional Thai Kaeng som with drumstick pods and fresh pla thu, the shortboiled mackerel, you can't miss the 'drumstick diplomacy' across the border there. In Indonesia, like in Kerala, India, the leaves are commonly eaten, but of course cooked in the traditional Far Eastern style, like in a clear vegetable soup, often with corn, spinach and coconut milk. A firm favourite among Cambodians too, many are even known to traditionally grow moringa trees close to their residences.
Up in the Phillippines, Tinola is almost an iconic dish. Traditionally, cooked with chicken, wedges of green papaya, and leaves of the siling labuyo, the small chilli pepper cultivar native to the Philippines, in a broth garnished with ginger, onions and fish sauce, Tinola many Filippinos say isn't the same without the moringa leaves they call marungay or malunggay.  Interestingly, even Tinola's first ever mention is in a 19th-century book by Filipino nationalist José Rizal, 'Noli Me Tángere', his first novel and now part of the high-school curriculum in Filipino schools. Initially banned by the then Spanish rulers, it eventually took over a hundred years for an English edition of the book to be printed. But barely any time for the taste of the moringa to catch on with the Filipinos. Incredibly, that's quite been the story, pretty much everywhere else the humble drumstick has gone to!
Abhishek is a travel junkie, passionate foodie, trivia buff, and an amateur linguist
abhishek@khaleejtimes.com

• Food and Dining