Flavours of the festival
Around August and September every year, the business of banana chips in Kerala sees a spike. The round and (usually) salty savoury is in demand all year round in the State and pretty much any place which has a Malayali population, but this time of the year means the festival of Onam has come around. And during Onam, the banana chips are among the large assortment of edible items that find their way onto a fresh plantain leaf, for the traditional Onam feast, the sadya. For a small state nestled away at a corner of the nation, the cuisine from Kerala has had a widespread impact.
According to Naren Thimmaiah, executive chef at Karavalli restaurant at Taj Gateway, Thiruvonam day sees close to 500 patrons on an average arrive at the restaurant for the onasadya. “It is the one day of the year when we have slots for our lunch meal, from 11.30 in the morning to about 3.30 p.m.,” he says. “The food from Kerala has been quite well received in Bengaluru, and even the non-Malayali residents of the city have taken a liking for it, which is why we’ve seen so many restaurants that serve Kerala cuisine mushroom in the city in the past few years.”
One such restaurant is Ente Keralam, a favourite haunt for those who want to sample some authentic Malayali fare. Authenticity is the keyword when it comes to the food. Regi Mathew, who conceptualised Ente Keralam a decade ago, is now involved in the ongoing Kappa Chakka Kandhari food festival that highlights the cuisine of Kerala, believes that the unique flavour of dishes from the coastline is best captured by home cooks. “If you get into the details, all the four southern states have many overlapping techniques when it comes to the preparation of food. The main difference is made by the ingredients. For example, the famous fish-based preparations from Kerala draw some of their flavour from the fish captured from Arabian Sea, which has a different taste to those from Bay of Bengal. Such minute details also make up the taste of a dish.”
Coming back to authenticity, Regi and Naren are of the opinion that the charm of the food from the region lies in its simplicity, with neither making an effort to go overboard with the presentation aspect at their respective restaurants. The ingredients of the region and the method of preparation (Naren explains how they make some of the curries on firewood, as is the norm in some parts of the state even today) are what make the taste unique. Another reason Naren attributes for the popularity of Kerala cuisine is the broad spectrum of taste it provides. “Take sadya for example, you have rice, dry curries, rasam and sambar and eventually the payasam. There are sharp tastes and bland tastes, giving your tastebuds a full range,” says Naren.
While sadya is the flavour of the season, restaurants have not failed to capitalise on all the latest trends making waves in the State. “There is a huge demand for Syrian Christian cuisine and dishes from the Malabar area of Calicut, and a lot of restaurants have been quick to include them to their menus,” says Naren. “Bengaluru has the advantage in the fact that you have almost every kind of cuisine in the world available in the city, and the residents are exposed to the food of the world. So for them, familiar dishes from home are a comfort food; a way to connect with home,” he says. This is a statement Abhishek Nair, an engineer who works for a software firm in the city, agrees with wholeheartedly. “This year, I won’t be heading home to celebrate Onam with my family due to some unavoidable circumstances, but the sadya is something I don’t want to miss out on. So on Thiruvonam day, I intend to visit one of the restaurants here and have a full onasadya to celebrate.”
It is not just the Malayalis, but people from other states too join in the festivities. Naren and Regi narrate tales of how they see many patrons from the northern section of the country well-versed in the traditions and serving patterns of the sadya attend the feast every year. Much like Eid, another festival that unites people across beliefs and cultures with food, Onam too is reaching out beyond the boundaries of the state and touching people across the country.
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