The apples of my eye

Hailstone-pitted as most of them are this year, they are still ruby-red, crisply juicy and worth their weight in rice. Not exactly top quality rice, it must be said, but definitely in the medium-to-good price range depending on how hard I can bargain. Oh, the joys of driving a hard bargain! I absolutely love it and, even if I say so myself, I am pretty good at bargaining!

This is a skill I learnt years ago as a teenager stationed on the Saturday weekly market stall selling plants, cut flowers, fresh fruit and vegetables grown in the Market Garden in fertile Lancashire. The art of bartering was nonexistent in the mountains when we took up residence here all of 13 years ago, but on discovering that the orchard full of glorious apples was practically worthless in cash terms, bartering it for goods or labour seemed like the best thing to do. Initially, finding day labour happy to be paid in apples was a wee bit more difficult than anticipated, as local labourers usually had their own apples. I struck gold when an extended family of Pakhtuns moved into the area and rented accommodation minus apple trees. I had my labour when needed and, before the advent of road access, labour to carry supplies was a regular requirement and they were happy to be paid in apples — until, that is, they got a taste of the spicy apple chutney I concocted from time to time after which they would merrily haul firewood, gas cylinders and anything else for a jar or two or six of chutney. In the years since the arrival of the road, this tribe has slowly faded away yet the apples remain.

After some serious thought as to how best to dispose of apples, an astronomical 1,200 kilogrammes in a good year and maybe only a measly 14 apples in a very bad one, it was time to expand my horizons and go for the big time. The first important step was to work out who didn’t grow apples but could conceivably find a use for them. The initial list included bakeries, hotels, butchers, fish-mongers, newspaper vendors, cab drivers, clothes shops, shoe sellers, pick-up drivers and honey merchants, all of whom were then approached for a deal. After a test run, this list was whittled down to one bakery, two butchers, one cab driver, one shoe seller, one guy selling wild mountain honey. The list then expanded to include a couple of dry goods sellers which is where rice — now the basis for all exchanges — entered the equation.

How it works is this: first check the price of decent rice in as many outlets as possible, check the market price of apples likewise and then work out an exchange rate between the two. The dry goods stores currently take an average of 400 kg of apples between them and one of them, my favourite, places his order as soon as the trees come into blossom during spring. Based on the weight for weight system of apples to rice, I exchange for rice, lentils, beans, cooking oil, sugar, flour and whatever else I can use in the way of winter stocks and can find in his store. The bakery takes about 150 kg; since I don’t need mountains of baked goods (I make my own) from the bakery, I take tinned goods, coffee and cheese, all of which, after prolonged negotiations, I get at wholesale rates. From the butcher — he’ll take 50-100 kg — I get a few weeks of meat for the dogs which they get served up as a kind of pilau. A 20 kg sack of apples will get a very pretty pair of khussas or a large jar of honey and 30kg pays for a full-day cab trip down to Islamabad and back. After putting aside a decent supply of apples for home consumption, it is apples with and in everything you can think of all autumn, winter and spring. Any remaining apples get slowly bartered away for fresh eggs, fresh milk — some — not all that many — even end up being sold for cash. The lawyer gets a sack of apples every year whether or not his services have been availed of, on the understanding that if he is needed, no other payment is required.

I get such a kick out of bartering that I’ve even extended the range, now loading up with excess produce such as persimmons, apricots, plums, peaches, pumpkins, tomatoes and broccoli when I have them, loading up and going off in search of suitable victims who, quite often, haven’t got a clue what’s hit them. An elderly man carting six boxes of sweet limes from his farm near Kohala took some convincing that he should exchange one box for the large bag of apples I was taking to Murree, on spec, on the local bus but, eventually, he did see the sense of the deal!

Rosemary, thyme, basil, tarragon, chives, aniseed, oregano and other herbs — again, after delicate negotiations — all go to a city fruit and vegetable wallah who I barter with for things like onions, potatoes, ginger and garlic and for delicacies such as mangoes, pineapples and guavas. I recently began bartering excess plants too and, so far, these have earned me dozens of fresh naan, a few sacks of oranges, lemons and grapefruit, a sack of walnuts, some new species of plants and seeds plus, strange as it may sound, a rather decadent pizza!

I now find, with bartering having become such an integral part of life, that I have a variety of possibilities in mind when sowing vegetable and herb seeds, when propagating ornamentals, when planting additional fruit trees, when cooking up huge vats of jams, jellies, chutneys and pickles and even, let’s face it, when I’m dreaming … maybe that should be scheming!

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2010.