What are ice apples? Also known colloquially as “nungu”, it is the fruit of the palmyra tree. The palmyra (Borassus flabellifer) tree happens to be the official tree of Tamil Nadu (India). During summertime, the trains from Tamil Nadu transport the fruit in baskets (or otherwise) to Bangalore. Local vendors then load the ice apples either on pushcarts or on round cane baskets attached to their bicycles, and traverse all over the city’s lanes and bylanes, bringing fresh ice apples to so many of us (eagerly) waiting for them at home.  

Each kernel has three ice apples neatly packed inside. Each ice apple, in turn, has a covering or skin (buff coloured) that has to be removed. And then you finally get to eat the ice apple inside. The simplest way to enjoy ice apples is by refrigerating them with a little sugar sprinkled on. Heavenly. But you have to admit that you cannot easily describe the taste because it has no taste. However, it does have the most terrific cooling effect, and that is all one asks for during summer. The fruit is also made into a “payasam” (i.e. a kind of dessert), and lately has been incorporated into ice creams and milk shakes.

How did it get the name “ice apple”? Perhaps because of its translucent jelly-like appearance and the cooling effect (that explains the “ice” part) and perhaps because in one-dimensional view it resembles the shape of an apple (to explain the “apple” part). Whenever you buy ice apples, you also have to choose good ones: they should never be too hard and inflexible; they have to be firm but soft. In case you don’t know how to choose, leave it to the vendor; however, warn him that if he doesn’t do a good job of choosing, you will not buy from him again. It usually works.

And finally, each time I behold the ice apple, I sing in my mind “Ice Ice Baby”, “Ice Ice Baby”.