Atreyee Poddar
Long before dragon fruit and kiwis showed up on our supermarket shelves, our own forests, backyards, and roadside trees were growing some of the most nutrient-dense, flavour-packed fruits on the planet. Botanists actually credit India as the centre of origin for a surprising number of these — meaning they didn't just grow here, they started here.
Hard-shelled, aromatic, and sacred — bael is offered in temples and turned into a cooling summer drink (bael sharbat) that's practically a rite of passage every Indian summer. It's considered native to India and grows wild across dry forests, especially in central and northern India.
The humble ber — small, round, and sold by the fistful outside schools — is India's own wild jujube. It grows on thorny trees across arid and semi-arid forest belts and has been eaten on the subcontinent since prehistoric times, long before it was cultivated.
A tart, almost cranberry-like fruit from a thorny shrub, karonda grows wild in forest understories and is a native of India through and through. It's usually pickled or turned into chutney when unripe, and eaten fresh when it ripens to a deep purple.
A small, deep-purple berry with a sweet-tart flavour, phalsa is native to the Indian subcontinent and grows wild in scrub and dry forest. Come peak summer, phalsa sherbet is the unofficial cooling agent of North India.
Indigenous to the Western Ghats specifically, kokum's fame has stayed largely within India even today. The sour purple rind flavours Konkani and Goan curries, and the seed is pressed into kokum butter — a lesser-known cousin of shea butter.
Not to be confused with the jackfruit sold at your local market — this is its rarer, wild cousin, found only in the moist forests of the southwestern Western Ghats. India is considered the centre of origin for jackfruit as a species, making this one of the country's genuinely home-grown fruits.