Go Ahead, Taste the Honey

In my earliest post  (see Honey, Honey) I mentioned that I asked a friend what she would like me to bring back from India.  Her response surprised me when she said she would just like me to taste the honey.  She said that honey carries a unique flavor, it carries the taste of the land. So I used this as a metaphor for enjoying life in India.  I promised her that I would taste the "honey" of India.  I realize now that I needed to put conditions on that...

Let me explain,  I've been back from holiday in the U.S. for only a couple of weeks and the contrasts have been emphasized in my mind, kind of like seeing things with fresh eyes.  I got used to the way things were done here and nothing surprised me anymore after 9 months in India.   There's nothing like stepping away for a few weeks to renew one's perspective. The way we do things back West is very different from the way things are done here in the East.  There have been many times when I have said, "that would never pass in the U.S.", or "that is definitely not OSHA approved" and "that certainly has not been approved by the FDA".   

But then I have to remember that the world's second largest population has survived and thrived for centuries doing things their way.  By comparison I live in a sterile environment back in the U.S.  We sanitize and boil and wash everything. Now there are more allergies and super strains of bacteria than ever before.  Perhaps there's a connection?



Sure people get sick out here, and when they do it's pretty serious, but they have strong immune systems and they've gotten used to the bacterias here that would put me in the hospital.  I  am very careful where we eat and what we eat, but when I go out I don't think about the condition of the kitchen, the food handlers, or whether or not they've washed the food properly.  You just can't think about those things if you want to enjoy a meal out here.  Soap is a rare commodity in public bathrooms, heck, you're lucky if you get toilet paper.


The way India has been doing things is sometimes centuries old traditions that have been passed on from generation to generation. Today was one of those days when I was reminded of a centuries old practice of retrieving wild honey. I marveled at the haphazard way they handled the nest, and the way the honey was collected.  I shook my head and said "they've been doing it like this for centuries,  before they knew about soap or boiling, or bacteria".

After lunch I went for a walk in the warm sun and just down the street I noticed small billows of smoke coming from the grass.  Leading from there was a long ladder made of bamboo reaching into the height of one of the palm trees that lines the avenue.  Way up in the tippy-top was a young man....what was he doing?  I moved in for a closer look and grabbed the camera.

There was a young man up in the tree. I was curious so I stuck around to watch.

Guy is climbing down and the ladder is inside the rickshaw to give them added height.

A guy just pulled off a chunk of the fresh honeycomb.  The bees are the black blobs that you see all over it.

All these guys are waiting around for their portion of the loot.

Amazingly, these guys were not stung once as they pulled the honeycomb off the tree in huge chunks. Maybe they are the stingless type. They placed the combs in the buckets to let the honey seep out. Bees were swarming them and swirling around by the hundreds.

The honey was scooped by hand into water bottles.

I was amazed at how it was done.  More people gathered around from a safe distance to watch the retrieval process.  An Indian neighbor of mine was not amazed or impressed, she said this was normal.  She told me that they will sell it at the market, but it's a tricky business since occasionally they will have sugar syrup on the bottom of the bucket to get more money in the trade.

One of the guys scooped honey by the hand fulls into used water bottles, the golden liquid money spilled over his hands back into the bucket.  They proudly pushed a water bottle half full of honey in my direction and offered to sell me some of the raw, wild, sweet, gooey-goodness.  I had to kindly decline.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I want to taste the honey of India, but on ONE condition - it must be in a sterilized jar, with a label, on a shelf, in a western market. Alright, FOUR conditions.