Kerala
Cuisine
Kerala
food is moderately spicy in nature, but most flavourful, and its recipes
promote locally grown ingredients for cooking.
Kerala
is the home of kera known as the coconut
tree. Coconut is the base for many dishes and is used in almost every dish in
Kerala. Coconut oil is used for cooking. The oil is extracted from the dried
coconut or “kopra.” Grated coconut and coconut milk are widely used in dishes
for thickening and flavouring.
Rice
and tapioca (cassava) are the most common foods of Kerala. Varieties of main
dishes are made with these two. Seafood is also one of the very famous foods.
Fish, crab, shellfish, lobster, and prawn are used for everyday cooking.
Sardines and mackerel are the most commonly used varieties of fish.
The
different meat varieties used in Kerala kitchens include poultry, red meats,
and a few game birds (now restricted by law).
Kerala
breakfast shows a rich variety. Most of the breakfast dishes are made from rice
flour. Some of the breakfast dishes are appam, idiyappam, idli, dosa, and
puttu. Along with this, some of the side dishes are made with coconut.
For
lunch and dinner, the main dish is boiled rice. Along with this, there will be
one or more curries and side dishes. There are several varieties of vegetarian
and nonvegetarian curries and side dishes.
Popular
vegetarian dishes are sambar, rasam, aviyal, kaalan, olan, erisherry,
pulisherry, thoran, pachadi, and kichadi.
Food
in Kerala is generally steamed and lightly tempered. Most of the dishes are
spicy. Non-vegetarian dishes include chicken, fish, and lamb. Curry, fry, and
ullarthu are made from these varieties.
Nowadays,
Kerala people often have chapattis or food made of wheat, especially for
dinner. Grains like ragi and millet are common in some parts of south India.
Onasadhya
Kerala is famous for
its traditional banquet called “sadhya.” This is a vegetarian meal served with
boiled rice as the main dish and along with variety of side dishes. This
traditional meal is prepared during special occasions and festivals and is
served in a banana leaf.
Kerala
cuisine and the eating habits of its people are closely related to its
festivals, especially Onam. A proper sadhya is the traditional vegetarian feast
of Kerala. Usually served as lunch, it consists of parboiled pink rice, side
dishes, savouries, pickles, and desserts spread out on a plantain leaf.
Tradition insists that the tapered end of the leaf points to the left of the
seated guest. Rice is served on the lower half of the leaf. The feast begins
with the serving of parippu, a lentil preparation made of small gram and ghee.
The
second course is sambar, the famous south Indian vegetable stew in which any
available combination of vegetables is boiled in a gravy of crushed lentils,
onions, chillies, coriander, and turmeric, with a pinch of asafoetida.
Avial,
an essential side dish, is a blend of vegetables, cconut paste, and green
chillies. Some of the other important side dishes include thoran and olan.
Thoran can be minced string beans, cabbage, radish, or grams, mixed with grated
coconut and sautéed with a dash of red chillies and turmeric powder. Olan is a
bland dish of pumpkin and red gram cooked in a thin gravy of coconut milk.
The
savouries include upperi, pappadum, ginger pickle, pachadi, and kichadi. Upperi
is deep-fried banana chips. Pappadums are fried, creamy yellow, sun-dried
wafers of black gram flour. The ginger pickle is a rich brown, hot, and sweet
ginger chutney, while the kichadi consists of sliced and sautéed cucumber or
ladyfingers in curd, seasoned with mustard, red chillies, and curry leaves in
coconut oil. Pickles are usually mango and lime.
Desserts
are served midway through the meal. The payasam is a thick, fluid dish of sweet
brown molasses, coconut milk, and spices, garnished with cashew nuts and
raisins.
There
could be a succession of payasams, such as the palada pradhaman and parippu
pradhaman. Pazham, a small, ripe, golden-yellow plantain, is usually eaten with
the payasams.
After
the payasams, rice is served once more with the spicy rasam. Rasam is a mixture
of chilli and peppercorn powders boiled in diluted tamarind juice.Kaalan,
seasoned buttermilk with turmeric powder and green chillies, and plain sour
buttermilk that comes salted and with chopped green chillies and ginger, are
served before the feast is finally wound up.
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