I saw the LONELY PLANET show on Fiji-Ian was trying out chewing this disgusting mess! It turns your saliva red, and eventually destroys your teeth! Why do people chew it? Does it give you a mild buzz?
Where do you obtain betel nuts?
I haven’t chewed it in years, but let me respond with a question or two. Why do people drink coffee? Why do people smoke cigarettes?
Yes, there is a mild buzz and I’ve heard that it makes the senses a bit less sensetive to things like heat and cold and some pain, but I never noticed that. But the thing it does provide is a social interaction that is a key to the society in question.
When you walk into a men’s hut or a drinking circle in the pacific or parts of asia, part of the interaction of acceptance is the offering of some betel nut. Your acceptance into that hut or circle is partially predicated on your acceptance of the nut, leaf and lime and the correct usage there of.
It used to be much the same in the west not that long ago. You walk into a group of men (usually) and they would offer you the “fixin’s” of a smoke and you would accept it and roll your own. If you could not roll a smoke, or did it badly or didn’t smoke, for all practical purposes you would not be accepted.
Probably the closest thing we have today is a Starbucks or a similar gathering place, but that falls far short.
Let me add that betel nut with the red dripping down the chin and the gums turning black looks a great deal worse than it tastes, and, as I said, there is a pretty good buzz from it.
Betel nuts have a stimulant in them called arecoline. They’re used in one form or another by 10 % of the world’s population, according to one source I saw. In South Asia people chew a mixture of betel nuts and tobacco called gutkha or pan parag that’s extremely pleasant (IMO), addictive and carcinogenic. It does wonders for your powers of concentration and doesn’t cause you to drool or anything like that. I don’t think gutkha is sold legally in the U.S., but you can get various legal betel nut formulations that aren’t as potent online. You should note that betel nuts are notoriously carcinogenic even without tobacco.
Haven’t tried it, but I used to live in PNG, where it’s chewed lots. I’d have to say one of the grossest things I’ve seen is some guy doing a slow spit into a trash can. Looked like he was vomiting up really thick phglemy blood.
There it’s chewed with mustard and lime.
It’s treated by the government much like smoking – pictures everywhere of people with huge holes through their cheeks from having mouth cancers cut out. Lovely images.
You obtain betel nuts (aka buai) from a betel nut tree. Looks a bit like a very skinny and not that tall (~12 feet) palm tree. The nuts are at the top in bunches.
I was also told that it’s not that bad for you if you only chew the nut, without the lime or mustard, but the high isn’t as good. Course, that’s just hearsay, I never did any research.
I would chew occaisionally in Taiwan. AS TV Time said, sometimes it would be a real ice breaker to give some bad boys the evil eye, and then spit a big ol’ mouthful of red out. Instant buddies.
I last chewed some on a business trip to Hainan Island about 2 years ago. Man, that stuff was so powerful my head started swimming and I almost ralphed.
As to where you can get it: I don’t know where you live, but that is probably going to dictate a great deal of the availability. In Hawaii it is very easy to get it. In California I have noticed it in a number of asian markets. One sees it less and less often as one gets farther away from the West Coast. However, if you have an asian community in your town, you might check at the markets or herb stores. I know of some people who have betel nut trees growing in green houses to supply their own and friends’ habits.
A couple of questions: How are they prepared? Is the nut ground up like snuff? Or do you just pop them in your mouth whole? I’m very curious, as I’ve never even heard of Betel nuts.
I chewed that stuff (the “gutkha” that Bob Scene mentioned) for about 5 years. The gutkha contained powdered tobacco and lime. The lime helps the potent substance get into your bloodstream quicker.
That stuff was so hard to quit. But after I quit (and a couple of visits to the dentist), my teeth were fine. I quit 3 years ago and am still having lingering effects. For one thing, the product has stimulants that really help your digestive system. Quitting gave me constipation and really played havoc with my digestive system. I still haven’t recovered.
chewing betel nut is, in my non scientific and personal view, as ubiquitous as tobacco smoking is, in India. it is known here as “supari”.
The nut is about the size of a strawberry. spherical in shape. reddish brown in colour (more brown), with an interesting pattern if you cut it cross-sectionally. very hard. needs a nutcracker to break it.
often cut with a nutcracker into pieces the size of your avergage tic-tac mints and chewed upon till your saliva builds up and turns all red. mostly spat out after. swallowing the juice gives a strong buzz, atleast to someone who is not accustomed to other forms of highs.
it is almost always used in an after-dinner sweet-dish ( well, not always sweet, but for want of a better equivalent in the US dining habits…) This dish is known as “paan” and is actually a leaf with weird stuffings…almost always also stuffed with beetel nuts. if no specification is given to the paan maker he normally cuts it into tic-tac shape and puts it in with other stuff into your paan. habitual paan eaters might like their supari(beetel nut) in other forms, such as ground, sliced wafer thin, big pieces, small pieces, etc.
paan is often eaten by kids. so most parents would ask the paan maker (called paanwala in local tongue) to not put any supari in their kids’ paan.
tastewise, it’s kinda tasteless. or atleast a very mild taste. but it leaves the kinda feeling on your teeth that thums up leaves. i’m not sure you understand me at this point, but bear with me.
in my opinion, it is not addictive. but that is also my view on tobacco. so, there are many many indians hopelessly hooked onto supari.
what Jackknifed Juggernaut refers to is a powder and is known as “guthka” and is treated and packeted when sold. so i’m not sure how close it is to the beetel nut, or indeed whether it includes any part of the nut. i’m not sure.
the beetel juice formed by the chewing of the nut is, unbelievably often, spat out by idiots on walls along staircases of buildings, at bustops, on roads, infact in a lot of places. as common as graffiti sprayed walls are in gangland areas, only with no such connotations. these things you will only understand once you visit here.
The way it is chewed in the Pacific is the nut is halved or quartered. Then that half or quarter is put on a portion of a small edible leaf (I can’t remember what kind of leaf). It is then sprinkled with lime powder and wrapped in the leaf and placed well back in the mouth between the teeth and is chewed much like one chews a chaw of tobacco. Spit regularly (like chewing tobacco) and generally make a mess (like chewing tobacco).
I’m sure. I’ve got the box that some came in right here, and it has the ingredients printed on it, and “betel nuts” is first on the list. And it’s spelled “gutkha.”
i tried this about two years back. wandered around near my apartment in West Philly, walking into various Asian grocery stores. eventually, i got all my ingredients together. betel nut (maybe), something called poo leaf (i know), and some lime (coulda been lye, or some lye-ish compond).
all i know is i got no buzz, i got no red spit, and i burned the inside out of my mouth. terrifically.
so here’s my advice-
if you’re gonna do betel, do it right.
do NOT rely on informational displays about Betel nut at your place of work (kind of long story).
do NOT buy any product based on the (badly communicated) responses to your (badly communicated) questions from the ESL (or even ETL, EFL, or possibly even EFL) grocer, who may or may not be from an area where betel is chewed regularly.
and most importantly, when you have purchased everything, and you just put a big ol lump of chaw in your mouth and it burns, do NOT (DO NOT!) assume “Oh, I must have done it wrong- let’s add more lime (or Lye, or L-ish C) and try again”.
jb
p.s.- also do not do it with a friend, at least until you’re sure you’ve got it right. and especially, if you are with a friend, follow the last DO NOT.
otherwise, your friend can win any future argument with, “Yeah, I s’pose you’re right about the Kyoto Protocol… Oh wait, aren’t you the guy who burned a half-dollar sized hole in my cheek? You lose!”
?
RR
Umm, wouldn’t these two sentences contradict each other?
Personally I think that Betel Nut is one the vilest substances I’ve seen. I sure do love those toothless guys walking around spitting, what at first glance looks to be blood, all over the sidewalk. Of course, the “betel nut lobby group” is pretty damn powerful here, so efforts to restrict it have largely failed.
Chris
They would; if you look at them objectively.
but i just meant it as a commentary on my view of these substances.
Yes, i do understand that these substances are addictive. I was just hoping that most people would have the common sense not to get to that stage. But since they don’t ( not helped by the fact that that is a direct consequence of the substance being addictive, i know, but i was just hoping otherwise) we have hopelessly hooked addicts the world over.
ok, so now i make even less sense 
sorry.
Jeez.
I thought they were talking about ‘lime’ as in ‘the citrus fruit’.
:smack:
Of course, if you didn’t want to chew the stuff, you could put it in a big press to squeeze out the liquid and simply drink the betel juice.