{"id":49,"date":"2019-07-04T22:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T22:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/?p=49"},"modified":"2019-07-06T09:35:05","modified_gmt":"2019-07-06T09:35:05","slug":"gentrification-of-jaitoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/04\/gentrification-of-jaitoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Gentrification of Jaitoon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Long time ago, maybe around 30 years back, in north India, middle class homes had a ranking of &#8216;<em>tel<\/em>&#8216; (oil) used in the household. It went something like this&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><em>Ghee<\/em> &#8211; (Clarified Butter) &#8211; This was the big daddy of oils. Making food in ghee was the secret to making rich food (rich in taste, as well as giving a impression of lavishness). The <em>halwais<\/em> (sweet\/dessert vendors) bragged that their sweets are prepared with ghee. There was a proverb <em>&#8216;ghee ke diye jalana&#8217;<\/em> (burning a lamp with ghee) which meant &#8216;to celebrate&#8217; symbolizing that people splurge while celebrating.<\/li><li>Makkhan &#8211; (Butter) &#8211; It was used primarily with breads\/toasts, and sometimes while making cakes.<\/li><li><em>Sarso ka tel \/ Surajmukhi ka tel\/ Moongphali ka tel<\/em>&#8211; (Mustard oil \/ Sunflower oil \/ Groundnut oil) &#8211; These were the oils generally used for cooking day to day food.<\/li><li><em>Nariyal ka tel \/ Amla ka tel<\/em> &#8211; (Coconut oil \/ Goosberry oil) &#8211; It was mostly used for scalp massage. It was believed that a good massage with this oil will strengthen your hair follicles and will delay hair whitening.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When artificially hydrogenated vegetable oil came around, it almost fully replaced the <em>Sarso\/Surajmukhi\/Moongphali tel<\/em>, in the ranking of many homes. I am guessing, because nobody knew which vegetable were used to prepare this oil, people just called it <em>&#8216;Dalda ka tel&#8217;<\/em> using the first famous brand (Dalda) of this oil. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then there was the lowly <em>&#8216;Mitti ka tel&#8217;<\/em> (Kerosene), which translates to &#8216;oil of soil&#8217;. It was the only oil in the ranking which wasn&#8217;t extracted from an animal\/plant. (except, if you consider the fossilization of organic material over thousands of years, a part of the oil extraction process). <em>&#8216;Mitti ka tel&#8217; <\/em>was occasionally used. It was used in a <em>&#8216;Laalten&#8217;<\/em> (lantern), when the electricity was cut off, or in a kerosene stove, when the cooking gas ran out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, the most obscure and rarely used oil in several households was <em>&#8216;Jaitoon ka tel&#8217;<\/em>. It was a favorite of mothers of newborn children. It was recommended, that the mothers should massage their child&#8217;s body with <em>&#8216;Jaitoon ka tel&#8217;<\/em> , to make their bones and muscles strong. There was only one brand which used to sell it in bulk . Usually purchased in big tin canisters of 2-5 liters (massaging children consumed a lot of oil), it was an affordable &#8216;<em>tel<\/em>&#8216;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8216;Jaitoon&#8217; the fruit, is very famous in the middle east. In fact all the religions originating from the Mediterranean, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam loved this fruit. It is often pronounced &#8216;<em>Zaitoon<\/em>&#8216; or &#8216;<em>Zaytoon<\/em>&#8216;, in the middle eastern countries. According to the Islamic scripture Sunan al-Darimi, Prophet Muhammad is reported to have recommended using this oil  for massage, as it is a blessed tree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe that initially Islam brought the goodness of &#8216;<em>Jaitoon<\/em>&#8216; to the Indian subcontinent. Northern India has a lot of influence from that part of the world (trading via the silk road, and invasions from there), and I am assuming that&#8217;s how this tradition of massaging with <em>&#8216;Jaitoon ka tel&#8217;<\/em> for bodily strength, percolated into the tradition\/practices of the households here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, slowly over the years, &#8216;<em>Jaitoon ka tel<\/em>&#8216; lost its fame. People started forgetting it. Mothers stopped using it for massaging their newborns. It was replaced by either &#8216;<em>Sarso ka tel&#8217;<\/em> , or by those chemical concoctions of mineral oil sold by marketing giants as baby oils. In fact if you ask the latest generation of teenagers if they got the &#8216;jaitoon ka tel&#8217; massage as a child, they will all say no. They will all say that they have never heard of a fruit called &#8216;Jaitoon&#8217;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, in a rough sense, if I say that Islam brought the goodness of &#8216;<em>Jaitoon<\/em>&#8216; to India many years back, in the same very rough sense I can say that Christianity has resurrected benefits of &#8216;Jaitoon&#8217; here, in the recent years. But the resurrection is now in a very different context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the growing exposure of Indians to the western culture (Europe, Americas), and with the growing disposable incomes of the families, they are becoming more open to trying newer cuisines, and trying newer health regimes from the west. &#8216;<em>Jaitoon<\/em>&#8216; fits perfectly in this opening, and is becoming  a hot item in India again. But this time it is being used by the affluent population in a different context, as an ingredient in their exotic food items, in their salads. It is being dubbed as super healthy oil, with a boatload of fitness benefits. Consuming &#8216;<em>Jaitoon<\/em>&#8216; is fashionable now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s how our humble &#8216;<em>Jaitoon<\/em>&#8216;, started its journey as an economical massage oil, used in bulk on newborns, and over 30 years, transformed into this new expensive fad food ingredient, being eaten by the fit and the fashionable of India  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the story of the &#8220;Gentrification of &#8216;<em>Jaitoon&#8217;<\/em>  &#8221; , or should I now fashionably say &#8220;Gentrification of Olive&#8221; !<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>History of household oils, and the Gentrification of Jaitoon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[19,17,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/preritkumar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}