Traveling Food Metaphors

My husband’s parents left for Dubai last night, a destination that has been pending on my Mom-in-law’s list of must-visit places. She once told me, immediate family and close friends living in the UAE totalled to 75 families! But this is not just her story. If you are a Malayalee, then you’d probably consider Dubai your second home. In colloquial Malayalam, ‘Dubai’, does not mean that one particular emirate in the UAE, instead it represents all the six Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf. Like the word ‘Madarasi’ means South Indian to most people from the Northern part of India. Politically incorrect yes, but such incorrectness seep deep into common lingua, and soon start to sound right. 

One night in Dubai

Kerala has only three international airports – one in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. The next time you are at the Dubai airport; do keep a lookout for flights leaving to or coming from these places, and I can assure you that the frequency and the rush in those terminals will surprise you no end. Kerala’s mass migration to the gulf region happened from 1972-83, a phenomenon which is now called the ‘Gulf boom’. Today, the Malayalee diaspora in this regions totals to over 2.5 million.

But Kerala’s ties with the Arab land date back to the 3^rd Century, after the Arab’s took over the trade route from the Romans. It was the Arab trader, who closely guarded the secret of Kerala’s black gold, thereby creating scarcity and an international demand for this product. It was he who brought Islam to Kerala as early as the 7^th century, a century after it developed in Arabia. This I thought was interesting; especially because Northern India was introduced to Islam only in the 11^th century, post the first invasion. 

As a young girl studying in a school run by Christian missionaries, I had friends who were Muslim, Christian and Hindu. Lunch, was my favourite hour, and I waited patiently for the girls to open their tiffin boxes and reveal the wonderfully delicious dishes within. My Christian friends brought fried shrimps with rice, sometimes it was fried beef with rice and my Muslim friends brought Neychoru or ghee rice with chicken or mutton curry. On special days there was chatti pathiri, adukku pathiri and even athishaya pathiri. I traded my boring dosas’ and idlys’ and puttu for half their lunch box. 

Beef ularthiyathu, prawns fry, chatti pathiri and puttu with curry

If you are a meat eater, and if you have had the privilege (I use the word privilege on purpose here), of savouring home-made Malabari Muslim delicacies also known as Moplah Cuisine, you’d know why I prayed every evening to be born a Muslim in my next birth. Today, among other things, I am also a food show host. Thinking back, I consider the taste I developed for Malabari cuisine, as my first real lesson in understanding food cultures across the world. For, through the ancient sea route, food cultures of faraway nations had found their way to this region – Roman, Arab, Portuguese, Dutch and British, the influences are many. 



Parangi Andi or the cashew nuts

In a previous blog post, I have written about how the Turkish delight and the Midye Dolma, reminded me of food back home. Recently, I was at the Instituto Cervantes in Delhi, attending a class on Peruvian cooking. This food show can be watched here at 19:00 mins. Peru was once a colony of Spain, and their food cultures borrow heavily from each other. 

Though the Spaniards have had no direct contact with Kerala, traders from neighbouring Portugal have left their influences. And with both Spain and Portugal having their colonies in South America, the exchanges have been plenty. In Malayalam, a Portuguese person is called a ‘Parangi’ and the ‘parangi andi’ or the Portuguese nut is what cashew nuts are called to this date. Peanut is called ‘kappal-andi’ or ship nuts. This along with tapioca, green-red chili peppers, tobacco, rubber, potatoes, pine apples, coffee, vanilla and cocoa came from South America, along with slaves and communicable diseases, during The Age of Exploration. 

Malabari Biriyani and the Arroz tapado

At the cooking class conducted by the Instituto Cervantes, I learnt that rice was Peru’s staple food and they use pretty much all that we do while cooking every day food. Sweet potatoes were pealed, thinly sliced and fried, and used as a base for their finger food. Arroz tapado – rice based dish had a layer of cooked meat and was topped with boiled eggs. They use sunflower, soya bean and olive oil in their cooking, and this particular dish used pickled olives for garnishing. If I were to image the taste of the olives away, I’d have before me, a serving of Malabari biriyani. Mildly spiced, glazed with clarified butter or ghee, and with a layer of finely cooked meat. 

Comparison: Arroz Zambito & Ari or ricePayasam

Imagine my surprise when for dessert chef Nuria Rodríguez Parra taught us how to prepare Arroz zambito – Ari or rice Payasam, to most Malayalees. The only visible difference was when she added a few drops of alcohol along with lemon rind. The alcohol of course evaporated, and after the lemon rind was removed, it left but a faint after taste. The style of preparation was similar; and it was garnished with grated coconut before serving. How much more ‘Mallu’ could a Peruvian dish get? 



Turkish women, Gözleme & Adhishya Pathiri (bottom right)

I felt a similar sense of familiarity when I tried the Goulash in Hungary. Though the spices used were milder, and there definitely was no black pepper, this dish reminded me of the beef curry I had had in a small wayside shop in Kerala. While the Hungarian one was served with dumplings, I had eaten the Kerala version with hot porottas. And in Turkey, a group of women squatting down inside a makeshift tent, fed me the yummiest stuffed bread ever, I believe its called Gözleme. They fill it up with cheese, greens and meat keema and then cook it in butter... Çok lezzetliydi (delicious)! Yes, it does look a lot like the Mallu Adhishya Pathiri. 

What wonderful stories these make – the migration of ingredients, cooking styles and the metaphors of ‘traveling food’. And I hope my parents-in-law, will bring back edible delights which are authentically Arabic, and yet faintly Malabari.

Muslims in Indian Cities

Meanwhile, if the subject of Islam in India interests you, get hold of Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation - a HarperCollins India publication. It is edited by French Indophiles Christophe Jaffrelot and Laurent Gayer, and the collection of essays in this book deeply explores Muslim history in India, finding contrasting images in the lives of India’s largest minority. At the book launch, they spoke about the 10 historical cities they had documented, and one of them was Kozhikode. 

After that of course, I was all ears. While the Muslims minority in modern India follows the self-segregation trend; Malabar’s Muslims are an affluent lot, who enjoy the same social status as the local Hindus. In case you are planning to bring up the Marad example, do note that the book is comparing Malabar with cities like Bhopal, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad etc. The book goes on to say that as Islam came into this region through peaceful, commercial means of trade, the Islamic society here considers themselves Dravaidan just like the local Hindus. They also have power in numbers, because the population of Muslims in Malabar is behind the Hindus by just a few thousands!!