Benoy is a worried man these days. The trouble started last week when one of his favourite dishes, shawarma, was swept off the menu. He could empathise with a hapless youth for taking a liking for the Arabic food item though he thought it was a cruel fate that decreed the youth pay with his life for eating a dish, however unhygienic. Over the business part of the week began those raids on restaurants across the state that ended in restauranteers hitting back by voluntarily downing shutters. As some of his favourite joints began closing shop, Benoy swore at the media for throwing light on dead lizards and mice in refrigerators.
“How many of us have actually taken an inventory on the insects that are dead in refrigerators at home?” he was heard asking a friend in a plaintive tone. Benoy had another reason to be unhappy as his folks, like many in Kerala, had as good as abdicated the need for home cooking, day in and day out. When his wife Rani said, “Think how dreary it is to remain cooped up in the kitchen seven days a week,” Benoy couldn’t have agreed more.
He was prodded into action when he visited some of his elderly neighbours and found one old couple a nervous wreck. The reason — they were afraid that marauding food safety inspectors would start a scrutiny of one food item which in their opinion no Keralite can live without. After a hot debate on what the ‘national’ food of Kerala was, Benoy decided to find the answer himself.
He started off by posing questions to a cross section of his acquaintances. The choice drink of most varied from chaaya and kaapi to butter milk and bonjie (a sherbet peculiar to southern part of the state). True, he could arrive at this mix of Kerala’s favourite beverages only by studiously ignoring the spontaneous and common answers that came thick and fast — rum, brandy and toddy.
When probed on their choice food item and the answers, he found to his surprise, mostly had one uniform element. Stoutly stated along with a smattering of rice, tapioca, fish curry and beef-olathiyatu was the undeniable king of the Malayali palate — parotta, a take-away that is rumoured to have caught the attention of burger and pizza makers in the US.
As more and more kitchens pack up their once onerous duty it is the unassuming parotta that rules the roost. Such is the popularity of this roti-like contraption (it has ingredient dollops of animal fat of untraceable lineage) that hundreds of units have sprung up across the state to manufacture this unique food item for instant takeaways. The vegetarians frown at those who gobble down parottas dipped in oily meat curries, opting to close their eyes and taste buds to the animal fat that lends that ever-so-inviting smell and flavour to the bread of their choice.
On behalf of his elderly neighbours who represent a cross-section of the Malayali household, Benoy is now praying hard that the food inspectors spare the good old parotta, and thus keep Kerala off instant starvation.
“How many of us have actually taken an inventory on the insects that are dead in refrigerators at home?” he was heard asking a friend in a plaintive tone. Benoy had another reason to be unhappy as his folks, like many in Kerala, had as good as abdicated the need for home cooking, day in and day out. When his wife Rani said, “Think how dreary it is to remain cooped up in the kitchen seven days a week,” Benoy couldn’t have agreed more.
He was prodded into action when he visited some of his elderly neighbours and found one old couple a nervous wreck. The reason — they were afraid that marauding food safety inspectors would start a scrutiny of one food item which in their opinion no Keralite can live without. After a hot debate on what the ‘national’ food of Kerala was, Benoy decided to find the answer himself.
He started off by posing questions to a cross section of his acquaintances. The choice drink of most varied from chaaya and kaapi to butter milk and bonjie (a sherbet peculiar to southern part of the state). True, he could arrive at this mix of Kerala’s favourite beverages only by studiously ignoring the spontaneous and common answers that came thick and fast — rum, brandy and toddy.
When probed on their choice food item and the answers, he found to his surprise, mostly had one uniform element. Stoutly stated along with a smattering of rice, tapioca, fish curry and beef-olathiyatu was the undeniable king of the Malayali palate — parotta, a take-away that is rumoured to have caught the attention of burger and pizza makers in the US.
As more and more kitchens pack up their once onerous duty it is the unassuming parotta that rules the roost. Such is the popularity of this roti-like contraption (it has ingredient dollops of animal fat of untraceable lineage) that hundreds of units have sprung up across the state to manufacture this unique food item for instant takeaways. The vegetarians frown at those who gobble down parottas dipped in oily meat curries, opting to close their eyes and taste buds to the animal fat that lends that ever-so-inviting smell and flavour to the bread of their choice.
On behalf of his elderly neighbours who represent a cross-section of the Malayali household, Benoy is now praying hard that the food inspectors spare the good old parotta, and thus keep Kerala off instant starvation.
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