Description
The areca nut is not a true nut, but rather a drupe. It is commercially available in dried, cured and fresh forms. While fresh, the husk is green and the nut inside is soft enough to be cut with a typical knife. In the ripe fruit, the husk becomes yellow or orange and, as it dries, the fruit inside hardens to a wood-like consistency. At that stage, the areca nut can only be sliced using a special scissors-like cutter (known as aḍakattera in Telugu, adake kattari in Kannada,bajjeai in Tulu, adakitta in Marathi, giraya in Sinhala, jaanti in Bengali, paakkuvetti in Malayalam and Tamil, sarautaa in Hindi, and sudi in Gujarati).
Usually for chewing, a few slices of the nut are wrapped in a betel leaf along with lime (not to be confused with the citrus fruit named lime) and may include clove, cardamom, catechu (kattha) and/or other spices for extra flavouring. Betel leaf has a fresh, peppery taste, but it can also be bitter to varying degrees depending on the variety. The combination of areca nut with betel leaf is called tamul (তামূল/ "তামোল")in Assamese, kavala in Kannada, tambulam in Sanskrit, bajjai in Tulu, and paan in Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, and Urdu.
Areca nuts are chewed with betel leaf for their effects as a mild stimulant, causing a warming sensation in the body and slightly heightened alertness, although the effects vary from person to person. The effect of chewing betel leaf and areca nut together is relatively mild, and could be compared to drinking a cup of coffee.
The areca nut contains the tannins arecatannin and gallic acid; a fixed oil gum; a little terpineol; lignin; various saline substances; and three main alkaloids — arecoline, arecaidine and guvacine — which all have vasoconstricting properties. The betel leaf chewed along with the nut contains eugenol, another vasoconstrictor. Many chewers also add small pieces of tobacco leaf to the mixture, thereby adding the effect of nicotine, which causes greater addiction than the drugs contained in the nut and the betel leaf.
In almost all parts of India, Sri Lanka and southern China, areca nuts are not only chewed along with betel leaf, but are also used in the preparation of Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicines. Powdered areca nut is used as a constituent in some dentifrices. Other medicinal uses include the removal of tapeworms and other intestinal parasites by swallowing a few teaspoons of powdered areca nut, drunk as a decoction, or by taking tablets containing the extracted alkaloids.
Read more about this topic: Areca Nut
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)