The Great Indian Chew
Niccolao Manucci of Venice came to India as a boy of 14 in 1655, and spent the rest of his life in the country. After living in Delhi, Agra and Goa, practising as a self-taught doctor, he returned to Pondicherry where he died in. His Storia di Mogor has a lot of salacious gossip about the goings-on in the harems of Mughal kings.
On his first journey from Surat to Agra and Delhi, Manucci was much intrigued by Indians’ favourite indulgence. He wrote: “Among other things, I was much surprised to see that almost everybody was spitting something red as blood. I imagined it must be due to some complaint of the country, or that their teeth had become broken. I asked an English lady what was the matter, and whether it was the practice in this country for the inhabitants to have their teeth extracted.
When she understood my question, she answered that it was not any disease, but a certain aromatic leaf called in the language of the country — paan, or in Portuguese, betel. She ordered some leaves to be brought, ate some herself and gave me some to eat. Having taken them, my head swam to such an extent that I feared I was dying. It caused me to fall down; I lost my colour, and endured agonies; but she poured into my mouth a little salt, and brought me to my senses. The lady assured me that everyone who ate it for the first time felt the same effects.
Betel, or paan, is a leaf similar to the ivy-leaf, but the betel leaf is longer. It is very medicinal, and eaten by everybody in India. They chew it along with arecas, which physicians call Avelans Indicas, and a little katha, which is the dried juice of a certain plant that grows in India. Smearing the betel leaf with a little of the katha, they chew them together, which makes the lips scarlet and gives a pleasant scent. It happens with the eaters of betel, as to those accustomed to take tobacco, that they are unable to refrain from taking it many times a day. Thus the women of India, whose principal business it is to tell stories and eat betel, are unable to remain many minutes without having it in their mouths.
It is an exceedingly common practice in India to offer betel leaf by way of politeness, chiefly among the great men, who, when anyone pays them a visit, offer betel at the time or leaving as mark of goodwill, and of the estimation in which they hold the person who is visiting them. It would be great piece of rudeness to refuse it.”
(From Beyond the Three Seas,
edited by M.H. Fisher, Random House) source
