I have always been fascinated by food. Not just eating it, but the making of it. The smells, the look, the taste... the kitchen was a fascinating place. No doubt because I was too young to worry about cooking for a large family, on a daily basis, the kitchen of our house in Kerala became a rather attractive place, with its large wood stoves, the walls black with the soot of the ages, the tall window over the 'kottathalam' that overlooked the kitchen well, a coir rope tied to a tin bucket's handle, and the daily routine of drawing fresh, cold water for cooking and cleaning .... like many homes in Kerala at the time, the kitchen and dining room were separate from the living quarters. We called it 'adukkalappura' - it included the kitchen, dining room, store room, granary and the bathroom.
Long verandahs stretched from one end to the other on three sides, the one beside the kitchen overlooking the cow sheds, where my ammachan's (maternal grandfather) cows would nod over their feed. They provided the milk, and other dairy needs for the entire household, and in summer, the household expanded to envelop into its fold myriad cousins, aunts and uncles. The granary was always full by April, the 'nellu' coming in from our paddy fields in Pudukkad. Ammachan was a gardner, a tiller of the soil, and the 'kalavara' was stacked with the efforts of his labour - pumpkins, raw plaintains, brinjals, beans, bitter gourd, ginger, tamarind - the list was endless.
Summer brought with baskets and baskets of mangoes with names like'Neelan', 'Moovandan', 'Godavari' - the last named looking like a larger version of the Totapuri - all so mouthwateringly tasty when eaten with chillipowder and salt. Then there were other varieties that were best eaten ripe. 'Chandrakkaran', 'Alphonso', the above mentioned 'Neelan' - it was a fight between the women who wanted to make 'Maanga Pachadi' and 'Maambazha Koottan' and the children who felt that cooking mangoes was a sheer waste! Plaintains by the dozen - or 'kola kannakkinu' as ammachan would have said - 'Kathali', 'Poovan', 'Cheru Pazham', Sarkara Kathali' - the variations were endless.
Jackfruit, hanging by the dozen, and while I was not too fond of the fruit myself, ammachan made the most delicious 'chakka varatti' out of the ripe flesh. He had only one condition though - we had to pluck the ripe pods and deseed them. This was a long drawn out process, and a messy one. We would apply coconut oil liberally on our hands and the knives, to avoid having the sap stick (not very succesfully, I may add) and as many pods as went into the vessel would go into my sister's mouth.
After what seemed like hours spent deseeding many, many jackfruits, ammachan would begin preparations for cooking it the next morning. Huge 'uralis' would be brought out of the store room, and Thangu, our long-serving (and long-suffering) maid would scrub it clean with wood ash and a 'chakiri'. Bricks would be laid in the courtyard behind the kitchen to form an open stove, and dry wood and twigs would be collected to start the fire. Early next morning, ammachan would start to cook the jackfruit pods with a little water in the urali. It was a feat to keep the fire low, and the heat constant, but he managed it. The fragrance of the 'chakka varatti' was more than your taste buds could bear.
Finally, when you think you cannot take it any more, ammachan says 'Mathi'. (Enough.) I remember ammachan saying that if made well, this chakka varatti can last a whole year - without any preservatives. As the mixture cools, it hardens even more, until you have to pull really hard to get a piece off. The resultant sticky hands are worth it!
Childhood memories are strange that way - everything seems sharper somehow, the fragrances stronger, the visuals sharper, the sounds clearer. I can still smell hot ghee, cooking fruit and jaggery, mingling with the scent of the woodsmoke; still see the smoke hanging almost motionless in the still air. Only ammachan is no longer there. He was conservative in many ways, but very open minded in other ways. He loved to cook, and while he did not eat meat or even eggs, he was always about our culinary experiments, and would always taste them. Only, it had to be served to him either at tea time or during dinner. He never snacked in between meals.
It was probably that inner discipline that stood him in good stead, even as he aged. He could still walk everywhere, and even though my brother forbade him from going to work in the grounds because of his ill health, he made sure that the workers would not slack off.
This is my tribute to my ammachan - who ensured that when summer holidays rolled along, the store room was filled with homemade snacks like chips made from bananas, jack fruit, bread fruit, and sweets. Tender cocounuts were always stacked in one corner to quench our thirst, golden mangoes nestled in straw-lined baskets, and bunches of bananas leaned drunkenly against the walls.
He may not like all the recipes posted here, but he will appreciate the fact that I cook, and, wherever he is, he would still like to taste a bit - only if I serve it to him with his meals, however!
It is also a tribute to the very many good cooks I have met - my mother, my sister, my sister-in-law, my aunts, my father, my eldest brother, my husband, his aunts, friends ---- the list is endless. It is my misfortune that I do not have a single recipe from one of the best cooks I have had the pleasure of knowing - my paternal grandmother, achamma. It was said of her that she could even make 'Kanji' taste good. I have seen (and eaten) the results of her cooking at my aunt's house in Madras, but even though I often thought about it, I never did sit down and talk to her about food or write down her recipes. She was an amazing woman in many ways - she sewed her own clothes, loved to cook and eat, remained very fit until one day, she had her dinner, sat down to watch her favourite TV show and... died. My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, had no great love for cooking, and it showed in the indifferent dishes she served up. Her interests were quite different. She was extremely well-educated for her generation (she was a BA (Honours) from Madras University, very well-read, reading the classics in English and Malayalam, even as she thoroughly enjoyed her Mills & Boon. She played Badminton for her college (Maharajah's College, Ernakulam) was well-travelled, and erudite. She had apparently nursed ambitions of taking up nursing, but that was not a career to be thought of, for a famous doctor's daughter.
My mother learned cooking in self-defense. While I remember her turning out many tasty dishes while we were children, my father has horror stories of the early days of their marriage. My sister is indifferent to cooking. Ironically, she is an excellent cook, cooking more by instinct than by following recipes. She is another person who can turn out an excellent meal within no time, and leave you licking your plate and fingers. My brother learned to cook while he was staying alone in Arathur, and soon learnt to turn a mean ladle. Even today, my sister-in-law, an excellent cook herself, will insist that he make 'Uppuma'. She claims he is better at it than she is.
With women like these surrounding me, and the men in my life not shying away from 'the women's domain' , it is no wonder that I became fascinated by the process.
This, then is a tribute to all good cooks - may we continue to share recipes of dishes that excite us, may we continue to make guinea pigs of every one around us in our quest for that 'perfect' dish, may we continue to enjoy cooking for the sheer delight of changing the ordinary into culinary temptations that no one can resist.
Long verandahs stretched from one end to the other on three sides, the one beside the kitchen overlooking the cow sheds, where my ammachan's (maternal grandfather) cows would nod over their feed. They provided the milk, and other dairy needs for the entire household, and in summer, the household expanded to envelop into its fold myriad cousins, aunts and uncles. The granary was always full by April, the 'nellu' coming in from our paddy fields in Pudukkad. Ammachan was a gardner, a tiller of the soil, and the 'kalavara' was stacked with the efforts of his labour - pumpkins, raw plaintains, brinjals, beans, bitter gourd, ginger, tamarind - the list was endless.
Summer brought with baskets and baskets of mangoes with names like'Neelan', 'Moovandan', 'Godavari' - the last named looking like a larger version of the Totapuri - all so mouthwateringly tasty when eaten with chillipowder and salt. Then there were other varieties that were best eaten ripe. 'Chandrakkaran', 'Alphonso', the above mentioned 'Neelan' - it was a fight between the women who wanted to make 'Maanga Pachadi' and 'Maambazha Koottan' and the children who felt that cooking mangoes was a sheer waste! Plaintains by the dozen - or 'kola kannakkinu' as ammachan would have said - 'Kathali', 'Poovan', 'Cheru Pazham', Sarkara Kathali' - the variations were endless.
Jackfruit, hanging by the dozen, and while I was not too fond of the fruit myself, ammachan made the most delicious 'chakka varatti' out of the ripe flesh. He had only one condition though - we had to pluck the ripe pods and deseed them. This was a long drawn out process, and a messy one. We would apply coconut oil liberally on our hands and the knives, to avoid having the sap stick (not very succesfully, I may add) and as many pods as went into the vessel would go into my sister's mouth.
After what seemed like hours spent deseeding many, many jackfruits, ammachan would begin preparations for cooking it the next morning. Huge 'uralis' would be brought out of the store room, and Thangu, our long-serving (and long-suffering) maid would scrub it clean with wood ash and a 'chakiri'. Bricks would be laid in the courtyard behind the kitchen to form an open stove, and dry wood and twigs would be collected to start the fire. Early next morning, ammachan would start to cook the jackfruit pods with a little water in the urali. It was a feat to keep the fire low, and the heat constant, but he managed it. The fragrance of the 'chakka varatti' was more than your taste buds could bear.
Finally, when you think you cannot take it any more, ammachan says 'Mathi'. (Enough.) I remember ammachan saying that if made well, this chakka varatti can last a whole year - without any preservatives. As the mixture cools, it hardens even more, until you have to pull really hard to get a piece off. The resultant sticky hands are worth it!
Childhood memories are strange that way - everything seems sharper somehow, the fragrances stronger, the visuals sharper, the sounds clearer. I can still smell hot ghee, cooking fruit and jaggery, mingling with the scent of the woodsmoke; still see the smoke hanging almost motionless in the still air. Only ammachan is no longer there. He was conservative in many ways, but very open minded in other ways. He loved to cook, and while he did not eat meat or even eggs, he was always about our culinary experiments, and would always taste them. Only, it had to be served to him either at tea time or during dinner. He never snacked in between meals.
It was probably that inner discipline that stood him in good stead, even as he aged. He could still walk everywhere, and even though my brother forbade him from going to work in the grounds because of his ill health, he made sure that the workers would not slack off.
This is my tribute to my ammachan - who ensured that when summer holidays rolled along, the store room was filled with homemade snacks like chips made from bananas, jack fruit, bread fruit, and sweets. Tender cocounuts were always stacked in one corner to quench our thirst, golden mangoes nestled in straw-lined baskets, and bunches of bananas leaned drunkenly against the walls.
He may not like all the recipes posted here, but he will appreciate the fact that I cook, and, wherever he is, he would still like to taste a bit - only if I serve it to him with his meals, however!
It is also a tribute to the very many good cooks I have met - my mother, my sister, my sister-in-law, my aunts, my father, my eldest brother, my husband, his aunts, friends ---- the list is endless. It is my misfortune that I do not have a single recipe from one of the best cooks I have had the pleasure of knowing - my paternal grandmother, achamma. It was said of her that she could even make 'Kanji' taste good. I have seen (and eaten) the results of her cooking at my aunt's house in Madras, but even though I often thought about it, I never did sit down and talk to her about food or write down her recipes. She was an amazing woman in many ways - she sewed her own clothes, loved to cook and eat, remained very fit until one day, she had her dinner, sat down to watch her favourite TV show and... died. My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, had no great love for cooking, and it showed in the indifferent dishes she served up. Her interests were quite different. She was extremely well-educated for her generation (she was a BA (Honours) from Madras University, very well-read, reading the classics in English and Malayalam, even as she thoroughly enjoyed her Mills & Boon. She played Badminton for her college (Maharajah's College, Ernakulam) was well-travelled, and erudite. She had apparently nursed ambitions of taking up nursing, but that was not a career to be thought of, for a famous doctor's daughter.
My mother learned cooking in self-defense. While I remember her turning out many tasty dishes while we were children, my father has horror stories of the early days of their marriage. My sister is indifferent to cooking. Ironically, she is an excellent cook, cooking more by instinct than by following recipes. She is another person who can turn out an excellent meal within no time, and leave you licking your plate and fingers. My brother learned to cook while he was staying alone in Arathur, and soon learnt to turn a mean ladle. Even today, my sister-in-law, an excellent cook herself, will insist that he make 'Uppuma'. She claims he is better at it than she is.
With women like these surrounding me, and the men in my life not shying away from 'the women's domain' , it is no wonder that I became fascinated by the process.
This, then is a tribute to all good cooks - may we continue to share recipes of dishes that excite us, may we continue to make guinea pigs of every one around us in our quest for that 'perfect' dish, may we continue to enjoy cooking for the sheer delight of changing the ordinary into culinary temptations that no one can resist.
© 2008 Anuradha Warrier
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1 comments:
A good khana blog, here!
Although I can't pronounce half of the dishes, they sound all so yummy. I love avial.
You should continue with it!
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