Bamboo’s pandemic offerings: leaf tea and muli cookies

Called King of forest vegetables, the food applications of bamboo remain least explored, but the pandemic provided time to develop recipes using bamboo shoots and leaves

Huge swathes of Neriamangalam forests in the hills of Idukki are awash with golden bamboo blossoms. This rare phenomenon occurs once in a human lifetime, between 40 to 50 years, and is often associated with oncoming famine. By March, entire groves in the range will die leaving behind tons of bamboo rice, which is gathered, stored and eaten by tribals as survival food.

Last year the rare phenomena had occurred in the forests of Wayanad and Tony Paul, CEO and Trustee of NGO Uravu, says the tribal hamlets in the area would have stored at least two to three tons of bamboo rice. “People rush to buy bamboo rice, as it is highly nutritious and has medicinal properties. Now a superfood, bamboo rice is not cultivated or farmed. It is a natural phenomenon and hence its production is limited. The price ranges from ₹500 to 1000 per kg,” says Tony adding that bamboo as food is least explored as its other applications are commercially more viable.

But the pandemic provided time for experimentation and new recipes were developed.