Kerala Food and Cuisine

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."
-George Bernard Shaw

Kerala, the land of diverse culture, offers extraordinary cuisine to its guests that definitely highlights the culinary proficiency of the Keralites. The state is considered to be the source of some of the world’s most famous and flavoursome dishes on earth. The hot and peppery cuisine of Kerala is abounding with coconuts. The Keralites are indeed the varied connoisseurs of their cuisines. The recipes are usually crisp, aromatic and tangy.

Specialties

The best thing about Kerala cuisine is that you can find every blessing of the land in their preparations. Kerala cuisine are prepared with coconuts, chillies, curry leaves, mustard seed, tamarind and asafoetida. Interestingly, a dash of tamarind can act as a wonder and an appropriate replacement of tomatoes, however there is no true alternative for curry leaves. Coconuts comprise an essential part of the cuisine of Kerala since ages.

A few of the specialties of Kerala cuisine are:

• Fish curry, fish molly, fish fry and fish peera are the most sought after items usually served with steamed rice or tapioca (cassava).
• Karikku or Ilaneer (tender coconut), Sambhaaram (buttermilk) and fresh toddy from local coconut trees not only quench thirst, but also fill one's mind with ecstasy.
• Avial is an all time preferred combination of vegetables, coconut paste and green chillies. It is usually used for seasoning purposes.
• Kottucurry is prepared with cubed potatoes, onions and green chillies in coconut milk added with red chillies.
• Olan is a bland dish of pumpkin and red grams made in thin gravy of coconut milk.
• Rasam is a concoction of chilly and pepper-corn powders boiled in diluted tamarind juice.
• Appam is a soft pancake prepared from toddy fermented rice batter. Puttu is also another type of steam cake.

Apart from the main course dishes, the creamy and tempting sweet dishes form an integral part of the meals in Kerala. These mainly include a variety of Payasam - a thick fluid dish of brown uncrystalised sugar syrup, coconut milk and spices, embellished with cashew nuts and raisins which are dished up halfway during the meals.