Aalemane is a celebration of the sugarcane harvest and a taste of the fresh jaggery farm festival. Sugarcane harvest is typically from December to March, and Aalemane, a traditional jaggery making venues hum with activity during the season. Apart from fresh sugarcane and sugarcane juice, one can also get to taste fresh liquid jaggery during the process. Seasonal delicacies like Todedevu and Manni are prepared using sugarcane juice during aalemane.
Sitting in a temporary shelter or cottage, visitors from the local community enjoy sugarcane juice with Chudva (Chivda or flattened rice flakes mix) and Mandakki / Churmuri (Bhel mix).
In yesteryears, buffalo or bulls used to walk in circles around the pivot (gana) to extract sugarcane juice. Now, a modernised sugarcane crusher uses motors to extract juice. The setup is often located right in the middle of or adjacent to sugarcane fields.
The traditional process of making jaggery:
In this complete process farmers do not use chemicals. This jaggery would be dark in colour. But this tastes better and has longer shelf life. A year’s supply of produced jaggery is stored for own use, and remaining is sold off locally.
Not many of these aalemane has survived in the recent times. But it is utmost important to keep this traditional and natural process of growing sugarcane and making jaggery in the community to preserve long-term sustainability.