Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts

An Excerpt from Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts:
Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy
By Ammini Ramachandran

Morning begins before sunrise in India. I still remember, from my childhood in lush, tropical Kerala in southwestern India, the sounds of a large joint-family household coming alive before daybreak. I could hear the clatter of brass pots and copper pans being washed and the rhythmic creak of the granite grinding stone pureeing coconut and green chilies for fresh chutney. Temple bells rang in the distance, announcing predawn prayers. The fragrance from the wood-burning stoves and the aroma of fresh decoction coffee permeated the entire house. Soon, the sizzle of dosa batter falling on the hot griddle would entice everyone to get up and get ready for breakfast.

I grew up in Chittur, a small town nestled in a mountain pass in the Sahyaadri mountain range, in a large Nayar joint family. (Nayars are matrilineal, tracing their descent through the female line.) With its abundance of rice fields, Chittur was considered the rice granary of the old kingdom of Kochi (Cochin) in central Kerala. From the twelfth century to the middle of the twentieth century, Kerala was divided into three kingdoms: Kochi, Malabar, and Tiruvithamcore, ruled by three different royal families. Our household consisted of twenty-one family members, two cooks, and several servants. My father passed away in a plane crash when I was eight years old, after which, following the old matrilineal tradition, my mother and her children moved back to her joint family.

Needless to say, it was a noisy household. After our baths in the morning, we children would all make a quick run to the temple. Breakfasts were simple, mostly idli (soft, round steamed cakes made from a batter of rice and urad dal, a split legume) or dosa (thin, crisp pancakes made with rice and urad dal batter) with coffee or tea and perhaps a banana or a steamed ripe plantain. After we children went off to school, my mother and aunts began planning the lunch menu. Lunch was always the main meal of the day—invariably boiled rice; ghee; yogurt; two or three vegetable dishes; one or two spicy, hot pickles; and some crisp fried wafers called pappadams. One dish would be either sambar or pulinkari (spicy curries with dal and vegetables), while another would be a mild vegetable or fruit curry simmered with ground coconut, green chilies, and yogurt. There would also be some spicy pan-fried green beans, plantains, or black-eyed peas.

After lunch, the children returned to school, leaving the adults to plan the evening snack menu. We would interrupt their siesta as we came charging back at about four o’clock. Afternoon tea, probably a legacy of the long British rule, consisted of a couple of savory snacks, fruits, tea, coffee, and perhaps a sweet. Sometimes there might be crunchy pretzel-like murukku spiced with cumin and sesame seeds, or thengavada, rice crackers laced with crushed black pepper—or perhaps piping-hot plantain pokavada, or vada, fritters made of ground dal mixed with green chilies, curry leaves, and cilantro. During the summer months, there would also be platters of bananas, sliced mangoes, and jackfruit.

Our evenings were spent at the temple. At sunset, the grounds would be crowded with families, all barefoot, as is the custom. While adults chanted prayers and walked around the temple, we children ran and played in the courtyard. On festival days, we would be given a small serving of nivedyam, food prepared as an offering at the temple. Sometimes this treat might be rice pudding, or it might be appam, made with rice flour, ghee, and brown sugar. I particularly used to love the kadala, made with tiny brown chickpeas seasoned with mustard seeds and curry leaves. We would cup our right hands to receive small servings from the priest. All those little morsels of prasadam (food that had been blessed) had a very special taste—maybe because we received only a small serving, or maybe because it was God’s favorite food.

After evening prayers, supper was served. Conversations were always quiet and subdued, as if speaking were a rude interruption of the serious business of eating.

For the first twenty-five years of my life, I knew only one kind of food, the simple vegetarian cuisine of my home. In fact, a non-vegetarian meal was a taboo in our home, even though traditionally the Nayars do not observe a strict vegetarian diet. But because the royal family and Brahmans always adhered to vegetarianism, and because certain Nayar families, such as mine, had close ties with them over several generations, often through marriage, our family has remained vegetarian.

Ironically, my true appreciation of this vegetarian cuisine was awakened only after I left home, and it has continued to grow during the three decades I have lived away from there. Moving to the United States with my graduate-student husband opened the door for me to a wonderful world of food. As the only married Indian student couple on the campus of Brown University in the early 1970s, our kitchen became the gathering place for a group of Indian graduate students longing for a home-cooked meal. Although we all came from the same country, I soon learned that the other students had not tasted most of the dishes I was preparing.

As my friends taught me how to make dishes from other parts of India, I came to realize for the first time how different the cuisine of Kerala is from the cooking of the rest of India. This really hit home when I first served banana paayasam—a form of banana pudding made with ripe plantains, brown sugar, and coconut milk—to my friends from other parts of India. They had no clue what it was! And even while they were complimenting me, I was baffled that such an old standby had suddenly become so new.

What makes this southwestern region of India—encompassing a diverse terrain of lush, dense rain forests; spectacular coastal towns and picturesque lagoons dotted with unspoiled beaches and soaring coconut palms; and, in between, peaceful, flat plains carpeted with rich, green rice fields—so different from the rest of the country? Just about everything: its culture, its language, and, most of all, its food. Regional differences are a salient feature of Indian cuisine because, until the British conquered India, each region was ruled by its own royal family and had its own provincial language, local customs, culture, and unique cuisine. And each region had its own history of foreign invasions and outside influences that affected its culture and cuisine. Our cuisine resonates with the influences of centuries of trade with outsiders.

The two most important aspects of this vegetarian cooking are seasonality and flexibility. This cuisine is all about creating the tastiest and most satisfying dishes from a few fresh, seasonally available ingredients. Our cooking does not require a professionally equipped kitchen or a pantry stocked with a vast array of spices and condiments. Rather, our recipes are based on the use of spices and herbs that are already to be found in most Western kitchens—cumin, coriander, black pepper, hot green chilies, ginger, cilantro, and sesame seeds. This is pure comfort food: hearty, steaming stews (we call them kootaan), savory side dishes, and creamy, custard-like desserts. Several of our recipes use only two or three herbs or spices and some coconut. And once all the ingredients are assembled, many of these dishes can be prepared in less than thirty minutes.

Our cuisine has always been—and still is—one without rules. You need only to know your ingredients; the rest is up to your creativity and your ability to improvise. The pungency and character of most spices can be modified, depending on when during the cooking process you add them and how they are incorporated into a dish—whether they are used raw, toasted, or fried. In the warm climate of southern India, tamarind, coconut, and yogurt have a cooling effect on spicy food, while mustard seeds, black peppercorns, and hot red and green chilies provide pungent counterpoints. Fragrant curry leaves enliven any recipe to which they are added. The warm weather ferments batters to perfection without any leavening agent.

Although this vegetarian cuisine excludes all meat, fish, fowl, and eggs, it is healthy, delectable, and nutritionally well balanced. Unlike traditional Western menus, our meals do not have a main course. In the vegetarian South, rice is the heart of every meal. At lunch and dinner, a mound of plain boiled rice is always at the center of the plate or banana leaf (our substitute for paper plates), surrounded by various vegetarian preparations. If you were not raised eating rice, this might sound a bit monotonous, but good rice is like good bread—it always stimulates the appetite. It is simple to cook and goes well with an amazing number of different foods.

With the abundance of coconut palms, naturally the coconut is another indispensable ingredient. Coconut is used in various forms in spicy hot dishes as well as in desserts. While rice and coconut provide the starch and fat content of the meal, various kinds of beans and lentils are the major sources of protein. Plantains, both green and ripe, are also indispensable in our cooking. All kinds of tropical fruits (most importantly bananas, mangoes, and jackfruit) substitute for dessert. Sweets are generally served only on festive occasions, not with everyday meals.

Read Some Recipes from the Book.


home about contact policies submissions feature archives audio visual writing reviews forums art film & television food literature music society & culture elsewhere desilit parabaas sasialit sawnet upper stall	An Excerpt from Grains, Greens, and Grated Coconuts: Recipes and Remembrances of a Vegetarian Legacy By Ammini Ramachandran Morning begins before sunrise in India. I still remember, from my childhood in lush, tropical Kerala in southwestern India, the sounds of a large joint-family household coming alive before daybreak. I could hear the clatter of brass pots and copper pans being washed and the rhythmic creak of the granite grinding stone pureeing coconut and green chilies for fresh chutney. Temple bells rang in the distance, announcing predawn prayers. The fragrance from the wood-burning stoves and the aroma of fresh decoction coffee permeated the entire house. Soon, the sizzle of dosa batter falling on the hot griddle would entice everyone to get up and get ready for breakfast. I grew up in Chittur, a small town nestled in a mountain pass in the Sahyaadri mountain range, in a large Nayar joint family. (Nayars are matrilineal, tracing their descent through the female line.) With its abundance of rice fields, Chittur was considered the rice granary of the old kingdom of Kochi (Cochin) in central Kerala. From the twelfth century to the middle of the twentieth century, Kerala was divided into three kingdoms: Kochi, Malabar, and Tiruvithamcore, ruled by three different royal families. Our household consisted of twenty-one family members, two cooks, and several servants. My father passed away in a plane crash when I was eight years old, after which, following the old matrilineal tradition, my mother and her children moved back to her joint family. Needless to say, it was a noisy household. After our baths in the morning, we children would all make a quick run to the temple. Breakfasts were simple, mostly idli (soft, round steamed cakes made from a batter of rice and urad dal, a split legume) or dosa (thin, crisp pancakes made with rice and urad dal batter) with coffee or tea and perhaps a banana or a steamed ripe plantain. After we children went off to school, my mother and aunts began planning the lunch menu. Lunch was always the main meal of the day—invariably boiled rice; ghee; yogurt; two or three vegetable dishes; one or two spicy, hot pickles; and some crisp fried wafers called pappadams. One dish would be either sambar or pulinkari (spicy curries with dal and vegetables), while another would be a mild vegetable or fruit curry simmered with ground coconut, green chilies, and yogurt. There would also be some spicy pan-fried green beans, plantains, or black-eyed peas. After lunch, the children returned to school, leaving the adults to plan the evening snack menu. We would interrupt their siesta as we came charging back at about four o’clock. Afternoon tea, probably a legacy of the long British rule, consisted of a couple of savory snacks, fruits, tea, coffee, and perhaps a sweet. Sometimes there might be crunchy pretzel-like murukku spiced with cumin and sesame seeds, or thengavada, rice crackers laced with crushed black pepper—or perhaps piping-hot plantain pokavada, or vada, fritters made of ground dal mixed with green chilies, curry leaves, and cilantro. During the summer months, there would also be platters of bananas, sliced mangoes, and jackfruit. Our evenings were spent at the temple. At sunset, the grounds would be crowded with families, all barefoot, as is the custom. While adults chanted prayers and walked around the temple, we children ran and played in the courtyard. On festival days, we would be given a small serving of nivedyam, food prepared as an offering at the temple. Sometimes this treat might be rice pudding, or it might be appam, made with rice flour, ghee, and brown sugar. I particularly used to love the kadala, made with tiny brown chickpeas seasoned with mustard seeds and curry leaves. We would cup our right hands to receive small servings from the priest. All those little morsels of prasadam (food that had been blessed) had a very special taste—maybe because we received only a small serving, or maybe because it was God’s favorite food. After evening prayers, supper was served. Conversations were always quiet and subdued, as if speaking were a rude interruption of the serious business of eating. For the first twenty-five years of my life, I knew only one kind of food, the simple vegetarian cuisine of my home. In fact, a non-vegetarian meal was a taboo in our home, even though traditionally the Nayars do not observe a strict vegetarian diet. But because the royal family and Brahmans always adhered to vegetarianism, and because certain Nayar families, such as mine, had close ties with them over several generations, often through marriage, our family has remained vegetarian. Ironically, my true appreciation of this vegetarian cuisine was awakened only after I left home, and it has continued to grow during the three decades I have lived away from there. Moving to the United States with my graduate-student husband opened the door for me to a wonderful world of food. As the only married Indian student couple on the campus of Brown University in the early 1970s, our kitchen became the gathering place for a group of Indian graduate students longing for a home-cooked meal. Although we all came from the same country, I soon learned that the other students had not tasted most of the dishes I was preparing. As my friends taught me how to make dishes from other parts of India, I came to realize for the first time how different the cuisine of Kerala is from the cooking of the rest of India. This really hit home when I first served banana paayasam—a form of banana pudding made with ripe plantains, brown sugar, and coconut milk—to my friends from other parts of India. They had no clue what it was! And even while they were complimenting me, I was baffled that such an old standby had suddenly become so new. What makes this southwestern region of India—encompassing a diverse terrain of lush, dense rain forests; spectacular coastal towns and picturesque lagoons dotted with unspoiled beaches and soaring coconut palms; and, in between, peaceful, flat plains carpeted with rich, green rice fields—so different from the rest of the country? Just about everything: its culture, its language, and, most of all, its food. Regional differences are a salient feature of Indian cuisine because, until the British conquered India, each region was ruled by its own royal family and had its own provincial language, local customs, culture, and unique cuisine. And each region had its own history of foreign invasions and outside influences that affected its culture and cuisine. Our cuisine resonates with the influences of centuries of trade with outsiders. The two most important aspects of this vegetarian cooking are seasonality and flexibility. This cuisine is all about creating the tastiest and most satisfying dishes from a few fresh, seasonally available ingredients. Our cooking does not require a professionally equipped kitchen or a pantry stocked with a vast array of spices and condiments. Rather, our recipes are based on the use of spices and herbs that are already to be found in most Western kitchens—cumin, coriander, black pepper, hot green chilies, ginger, cilantro, and sesame seeds. This is pure comfort food: hearty, steaming stews (we call them kootaan), savory side dishes, and creamy, custard-like desserts. Several of our recipes use only two or three herbs or spices and some coconut. And once all the ingredients are assembled, many of these dishes can be prepared in less than thirty minutes. Our cuisine has always been—and still is—one without rules. You need only to know your ingredients; the rest is up to your creativity and your ability to improvise. The pungency and character of most spices can be modified, depending on when during the cooking process you add them and how they are incorporated into a dish—whether they are used raw, toasted, or fried. In the warm climate of southern India, tamarind, coconut, and yogurt have a cooling effect on spicy food, while mustard seeds, black peppercorns, and hot red and green chilies provide pungent counterpoints. Fragrant curry leaves enliven any recipe to which they are added. The warm weather ferments batters to perfection without any leavening agent. Although this vegetarian cuisine excludes all meat, fish, fowl, and eggs, it is healthy, delectable, and nutritionally well balanced. Unlike traditional Western menus, our meals do not have a main course. In the vegetarian South, rice is the heart of every meal. At lunch and dinner, a mound of plain boiled rice is always at the center of the plate or banana leaf (our substitute for paper plates), surrounded by various vegetarian preparations. If you were not raised eating rice, this might sound a bit monotonous, but good rice is like good bread—it always stimulates the appetite. It is simple to cook and goes well with an amazing number of different foods. With the abundance of coconut palms, naturally the coconut is another indispensable ingredient. Coconut is used in various forms in spicy hot dishes as well as in desserts. While rice and coconut provide the starch and fat content of the meal, various kinds of beans and lentils are the major sources of protein. Plantains, both green and ripe, are also indispensable in our cooking. All kinds of tropical fruits (most importantly bananas, mangoes, and jackfruit) substitute for dessert. Sweets are generally served only on festive occasions, not with everyday meals. Read Some Recipes from the Book.