Jaggery baskets by the road

The Rameshwaram-Ramanathapuram stretch has such baskets placed in frequent intervals stacked neatly by the road. While returning from Rameshwaram to Bangalore, we stopped at one of the vendor and enquired on the item. We initially thought that it was ice apples since there were many palmyra  trees. He mentioned that they were jaggery baskets. These natural baskets produced from palmyra tree leaves are good packaging for jaggery balls. They provide protection from heat and air gaps make sure jaggery doesn't dissolve. The vendor was kind enough to provide us samples.

The vendor had three types of jaggery marketed directly from traditional Sugarcane mill. He said the mill is little interior. 

Plain jaggery costing 250 per KG

Other is jaggery mixed with spices

400 per kg is misri (rock sugar), similar texture as Gondh. Good to have in milk and pepper for throat infection as per vendor. Also good for health since it is unprocessed

Here is picture of plain, spiced and misri respectively in order

Closeup of spiced jaggery and misri

Sugarcane is sourced from sugarcane fields of Ramanathapuram close to Cauvery belt. The district seems to be backward compared to other TN districts and hence people largely depend on tourists for income.

Somehow I trusted the vendor and bought small quantities to home usage.

Prices seem overrated. Not sure if it's real price or inflated for tourists. He informed that jaggery is also exported to other countries. The vendor is also well-versed in Hindi which shows demography change. For business to thrive, you can't bind regional sentiments which most people are aware even in TamilNadu.