When I saw this product in the grocery a month or two ago, I stopped short. Water lily seeds? I didn't realize that they were a food. Clearly, they are. So I had to give them a try. These were the Ashapops popped water lily seeds, the turmeric garlic flavor, to be more exact.
It took a little digging, but Ashapops were started in 2017, by a man named Jai Farswani. In conjunction with his mother, Asha (who presumably has the same surname, but I couldn't confirm this). Asha was born and lived at least part of her life in India. Later, when she was in Los Angeles, California she decided to introduce a bit of Indian cuisine to the U.S. Thus far the company's product list is small, being only 4 selections of the Ashapop popped water lily seeds: chili, Himalayan pink salt, vegan cheese, and the turmeric garlic. The official company website and label proudly note that the seeds are free of gluten, GMOs, soy, and corn, and are appropriate for both vegan and Paleo diets. Water lily seeds are considered to be superfoods in the Indian and Nepalese alternative medicine known as ayurveda. Plus, the company donates to a charity that helps poor and disadvantaged Indians get proper eye care. Finally, several business websites claimed that the company has 3 employees. Which doesn't seem possible--maybe they mean 3 executives? You would think that you'd need more than 3 people to both run the business and gather, pop, season, and bag up all the seeds.
Now let's discuss the seeds, and their overall plants themselves. Their scientific name is Euryale Ferox, the only member of that genus. Alternate names include the prickly water lily (they have thorns) and the Gorgon plant. This water lily grows in hot and sunny areas from North India to Taiwan, and into parts of Eastern Russia. The round lily leaves can be up to one meter (about 3.3 feet) in diameter. Harvesting the underwater seeds used to be rather difficult, so modern cultivators often grow the plants in flooded fields that are only about 1 foot (about .3 meters) deep. The seeds, which are called Makhana in India, and fox nuts or lotus seeds elsewhere, have been enjoyed in Indian, Japanese, and Chinese cuisines for a good long time. Perhaps as long ago as the Neolithic period (10,000 to 2,000 B.C.) in what's now China. Possibly even in what's now Israel a staggering 750,000 years ago. Most people dry, fry, pop, and season the seeds, kind of akin to popcorn. But some folks put them in soups, porridges, or savory puddings. Finally, as I mentioned earlier, in the ayurveda tradition these seeds are thought to be superfoods. As far as I can tell, this assertion is as exaggerated and questionable as the non-Indian so-called "superfoods" are (see my post on May 1, 2014 for more information about that).
Ashapops popped water lily seeds, turmeric garlic flavor: The popped seeds are roughly round, or oval-ish, about 1.75 cm. (about .75 inches) in diameter. Their color was pale yellow, with some dark brown or black specks on them (these specks might be bits of spice, but I'm not sure). The texture was crunchy at first, but they became softer and chewy pretty quickly. The flavor was kind of bland. Which surprised me a little, since Indian cuisine is not noted for being shy about spice bite. Maybe the other water lily seeds are better, with a stronger and more intense taste. But the ones I had did not live up to the "ferocious" description of their name. (The second part of their scientific name, "ferox," means "ferocious" or "fierce" in Latin.). So overall these were rather disappointing.
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