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Treats from history

Once upon a time, a South Indian meal meant a potato-filled masala dosa at the Madras Hotel. Those were the days when dosas and idlis were still exotica to people in the North. The coffee houses offered dosas and tepid coffee, and the Madras Hotel c afé in central Delhi was one of our favourite haunts. For a few rupees, we had our dosa with coffee — and the revolution seemed just a block away. That was then. Now, of course, when you say South Indian food, you can be talking about Chettinad chicken, Malabari parota, bisi bele huliaana or avial. The different streams of South Indian cuisine are readily available in every corner of Delhi. And the big restaurants are upping their ante with every passing day. The search is on for new kinds of cuisine — which, of course, is good news for foodies.

That’s how I landed up at The Park hotel in Connaught Place the other day for lunch. I had been invited to a festival of ancient Tamil food. And just what is that, I wondered — and how would a modern chef know. It turned out that a Coimbatore-based food consultant, Jacob Sahaya Kumar Aruni, had done quite a bit of research into the food of what is now Tamil Nadu in the years before Christ, and up to 10 or 12 AD. That was before the arrival of a lot of ingredients that are intrinsic to our food now. Almost everything that you can think of — from chillies and most spices to potatoes and tomatoes — came to our kitchen in the last five centuries or so. Indigenous ingredients included coriander, black pepper (which is how most food items were pepped up) and veggies such as gourds and beans.

The spread at The Fire in Park included several dishes cooked with rice and legumes which are again indigenous. Our meal started with a small glass of paanagam — a refreshing drink of jaggery, tamarind and dried ginger (Rs.125). A great many appetisers and entrees later, I thought that the dish I enjoyed the most was the manjal yeralvaattu — chargrilled prawns in roasted turmeric masala (Rs.600). The prawns were incredibly fresh, and the masala coating gave them just the right elements of aroma and taste. We had started our meal with a horsegram soup (Rs.155), which I may not want to order again.

The alagin varai — chicken fried with coriander and sesame seeds (Rs.315) — was interesting, and I liked the neersembu varai — fried colocassia with sesame seeds (Rs.250). The yam — which came into Tamil Nadu towards the end of the period that the Chef was dealing with — was presented as sutta senai or chargrilled after being marinated with yellow lentils (Rs.250).

What was interesting was the muyal thengai — a rabbit curry cooked with coconuts (Rs.525). It was an interesting meal, and brought back questions on what our forefathers ate, and didn’t eat. I quite enjoyed the meal, though I had my own opinion about some of the ingredients that had gone into the cooking. For instance, the rabbit curry had been thickened with cashew nuts which, as far as I know, came with the Portuguese, and were not there in ancient times. But let’s not spilt hair, I said to myself. Or did I mean, hare?

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