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Taste of tradition

From tapioca bonda to tangy fish curry, you can savour several Syrian Christian specialities at Southern Spice

CULINARY TREAT Sujatha Zechariahs and Riya Mary Varghese at Southern Spice PHOTO: S. R. RAGHUNATHAN

Sun-dried shrimps, lobster, fish, chicken, duck and mutton, but no Syrian Christian beef fry on the menu. But then, if that's all you are looking for in the Syrian Christian Food Fest, maybe it would be wiser to sit down and let the unassuming Sujatha Zechariahs and Riya Mary Varghese educate you about their traditional cuisine.

The prejudice is blatant; it's for non-vegetarians. Like our enthusiastic friend explained, marrying into a Syrian Christian family could mean waking up to a breakfast of appams and chicken stew.

For starters, there are fried prawns, mussels and whitebaits to choose from. The humble tapioca transforms into perfect little bondas of pure delight — crispy on the outside, and soft, mildly sweet and spicy inside.

The main course is served in traditional style on a plantain leaf. There is a range of meats cooked in coconut oil, and that you can't escape. Kerala food minus coconut oil would be like fish out of water — lifeless. The trick as the two experts demonstrated was in its controlled use manipulated with delicate flavouring.

Simply delicious

It takes some guts to dip your fingers into the flaming red meen vevichathu. But the ladies had assured us that it wouldn't be that deadly. What had gone into them were milder Kashmiri chillies, and not their fiery Kerala version. But sniffing and blinking back tears, we finished it off anyway. The fish was the most deliciously tangy. The sourness that will leave you licking your fingertips comes not just from the big fat tamarind, Kodumpuli, used in their fish curries but also from cooking in an earthen pot two days ahead, and re-heating it every morning.

The chicken is to be eaten with the slightly sweet pancakes, pulicha appam that is unique to the Porur area of Kochi. Its process requires the fermented rice flour, dal and sago batter to be baked within three hours of the mixture rising, for that perfect puffiness. Traditionally, they are cooked with fire from coconuts husks both below and above.

On the side, we had jackfruit seeds fried with tender cashew nuts and banana stem and red beans tossed together. Both these dishes are of uncommon texture and taste, but delightfully subtle.

And finally, there was the healthy fat grained red rice, to be eaten with kumbalanga pulissery, ash gourd cooked in spiced buttermilk. Don't miss the offerings on the pickle tray, it's equally serious cuisine.

Now we come to desserts, the favourite part of a traditional meal, that's not always easy to get through. Not after you've gorged on such delicious food already. But the jackfruit halwa is a must. The Syrian Christians are rather proud of it. But the payasam for the day wasn't the usual syrupy torture. Perfectly sweet and thickened with freshly grated coconut, it was irresistible. So were the coconut palm rolls. Actually it was the honeyed syrup poured over them that had us addicted. Did someone say it came from the early morning toddy, boiled to a brown nectarine thickness?

The Syrian Christian Food Fest, just one more stop on Southern Spice's (at Taj Coromandel) journey of the four southern States, is on till July 2.

MEERA MOHANTY

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