Tamil cuisine

Tamil Nadu is famous for its hospitality and its deep belief that serving food to others is a service to humanity as is common in many regions of India. Traditionally, vegetarian dishes predominate the menu, including a variety of sweets and savories. However, the region has a rich cuisine involving chicken, goat and fish as well. It was developed over many centuries by Tamils who live in the region of present day Tamil Nadu in India. It is characterized by the use of rice, legumes and lentils, its distinct aroma and flavour achieved by the blending of spices including curry leaves, tamarind, coriander, ginger, garlic, chili, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, cumin, nutmeg, coconut and rosewater. The word "curry" is derived from the Tamil word 'kari' which meant "sauce". ^[1]

Rice and legumes play an important role in Tamil cuisine. Lentils are also consumed extensively, either accompanying rice preparations, or in the form of independent dishes. Vegetables and dairy products are essential accompaniments.

On special occasions, traditional Tamil dishes are prepared in almost the same way as they were centuries ago—preparations that call for elaborate and leisurely cooking, and served in traditional style and ambience. The traditional way of eating a meal involves being seated on the floor, having the food served on a banana leaf, and using clean fingers of the right hand to transfer the food to the mouth. After the meal, the fingers are washed, and the banana leaf becomes food for cows. This is a very environment friendly way of life. These traditions are also common in other regions such as in Andhra Pradesh & Kerala.

Because of modernization, urbanization, cosmopolitan culture and the break-up of the joint family system, compromises and adaptations are being made. A movement towards a simpler cuisine can be sensed. Urbanization has introduced Western-style seating arrangements at traditional events with tables, chairs, plates and cutlery becoming the norm, and food being served buffet-style.^{[citation needed]}

Despite changes in practices and their cultural implications, Tamil cuisine retains its basic character in the use of ingredients, and its aroma and flavour remain unchanged.

Regional

Over a period of time, each geographical area where Tamils have lived has developed its own distinct variant of the common dishes in addition to dishes native to itself.

The Chettinad region comprising of Karaikudi and adjoining areas is known for both traditional vegetarian dishes like appam, uthappam, paal paniyaram and non-vegetarian dishes made primarily using chicken. Chettinad cuisine has gained popularity in non-Tamil speaking areas as well.^{[citation needed]}

Madurai and the other southern districts of Tamil Nadu are known for non-vegetarian food made of Mutton, chicken and fish. Parota made with maida or all-purpose flour, and loosely similar to the north Indian wheat flour-based Paratha, is served at food outlets in Tamil Nadu, especially in districts like Virudhunagar, Madurai and the adjoining areas. Parota is not commonly made at home as it is laborious and time consuming. Madurai has its own unique foods such as Jigarthanda, Muttaiparotta (minced parotta and scrambled egg), Paruthipal & Ennaidosai (dosai with lots of oil) which are rarely found in other parts of Tamil Nadu.

The western Kongu region has specialities like Santhakai/Sandhavai (a noodle like item of rice), oputtu (a sweet tasting pizza-like dish that is dry outside with a sweet stuffing), and kola urundai (meat balls). Ceylon Tamil cuisine, not only bears similarities to Tamil Nadu and Kerala cuisine but also has many unique vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. It features dishes such as puttu (steamed rice cake) and Idiyappam or Sevai, (known in other parts of the world as string hoppers), which is particularly very popular.

Eating-out in its capital city Chennai, is a great experience and provides a glimpse of the unique lifestyle of the city. Chennai is known for its cuisine, brought to the city by people who have migrated from different parts of Tamil Nadu. Its rich traditions offer a variety of dishes, not only vegetarian but also Non-Vegetarian food. Chennai has a large collection of restaurants, some of them are unique 'Speciality Restaurants,' which serve 'Indian Cuisine' with an ambience to match, while most others cater South Indian tiffin and meals, at very reasonable prices.

Meals - Traditional

Food is generally classified into six tastes - sweet, sour, salt, bitter, pungent & astringent and traditional Tamil cuisine recommends that you include all of these six tastes in each main meal you eat. Each taste has a balancing ability and including some of each provides complete nutrition, minimizes cravings and balances the appetite and digestion.

Sweet (Milk, butter, sweet cream, wheat, ghee (clarified butter), rice, honey)

Sour (Limes and lemons, citrus fruits, yogurt, mango, tamarind)

Salty (Salt or pickles)

Bitter (Bitter gourd, greens of many kinds, turmeric, fenugreek)

Pungent (Chili peppers, ginger, black pepper, clove, mustard)

Astringent (Beans, lentils, turmeric, vegetables like cauliflower and cabbage, cilantro)

A typical meal (Lunch or Dinner) will be served on a banana leaf. As the staple diet is rice, steamed rice will be served along with a variety of vegetable dishes like sambar, dry curry, rasam and kootu. Meals are often accompanied by crisp appalams. The usual order of eating rice serving is rice with sambar or kuzhambu, rice with rasam, and last, rice with curd. The final round of rice is concluded with a banana and leisurely chewing of betel leaves and nuts.

For a non-vegetarian meal, curries or dishes cooked with mutton (goat meat), chicken or fish are included.

Meals - Restaurant

An Indian meal in restaurants is generally called 'Thali', which means Plate in Hindi. It is usually served on a stainless steel tray with a selection of different dishes in small bowls. Depending on the regional cuisine they specialize, they offer a choice of vegetarian or non-vegetarian delicacies that are native to that region. For example one may encounter South Indian (veg) thali, Chettinad thali, Mumbai thali, Rajasthani thali or Gujarati thali.

Rice, even if in a modest quantity, seems to be essential to the popular definition of thali. While North Indian thali consists mainly Indian breads like Chapati, Roti, Paratha, Phulka or Naan along with rice, South Indian thalis come mostly with rice. In North Indian cuisine Pooris, Chappattis are offered first and the waiter serves the rice later, often in a separate bowl. The rest of the items like different curries, sweet and other miscellaneous items (Applams, Papad, Pickles and Beeda) are similar for both North and South Indian thalis.

Thalis in some restaurants may include "bottom-less" refills (called unlimited meals) on all components of food. The idea is one eats until fully satisfied. In some places it means everything in the plate is open to unlimited helpings except a few items like sweet or vada.

Finally a banana, beeda, and a glass of juice or lassi will be offered.

Pure vegetarian restaurants under the brand name of Udupi cuisine, which is synonymous with delicious vegetarian food all over world, serve a variety of tiffin and vegetarian meals, mostly from South Indian state of Karnataka. Many of these restaurants have nowadays diversified and offer other Indian and Indianized Chinese dishes as well.

Typical Tamil feast - Virundhu Sappadu

Tamil culture is known for its hospitality. ‘Virundhu’ in Tamil means ‘Feast’, when guests (Friends, Relatives) are invited during happy ceremonial occasions to share food, love and laughter. ‘Sappadu’ means a full course meal, which can be either Lunch or Dinner.

During Virundhu Sappadu, guests sit on a coir mat which is rolled out on the floor and a full course meal is served in the traditional way, on a ‘Banana Leaf’ which is spread in front of the guests, with the tip pointed left.

Virundhu - ‘Sappadu’ served on a Banana leaf. *See Image for extended descriptions*.

The host will ensure that the menu includes as many variety of dishes as possible and guests are served as many helpings as requested. The dishes are served in a particular sequence, and each dish is placed on a particular spot of the banana leaf. Guests are expected to begin and end eating the meal together and do not leave in middle of a meal. With a look at the food on the leaf, guests will have a good idea of the community, wealth, and the region from which part of Tamil Nadu the hosts originate.

The top half of the banana leaf is reserved for accessories, the lower half for the rice. In some communities, the rice will be served only after the guest has been seated. The lower right portion of the leaf may have a scoop of warm sweet milky rice Payasam, Kesari, Sweet Pongal or any Dessert items. While the top left includes a pinch of salt, a dash of pickle and a thimbleful of salad, or a smidgen of chutney. In the middle of the leaf there may be an odd number of fried items like small circles of chips either banana, yam or potato, thin crisp papads or frilly wafers Appalams and vadai.

The top right hand corner is reserved for spicy foods including, Curry, hot, sweet, or sour and the dry items. If it is a vegetarian meal, the vegetables are carefully chosen, between the country ones-gourds, drumsticks, brinjals-and the 'English' ones, which could be carrot, cabbage, and cauliflower. (If it is a non-vegetarian meal, a separate leaf is provided for the fried meats, chicken, fish, crab, and so on.) But again, the variations are presented carefully, one dry one next to a gravied one.

There may be side attractions such as Poli, Poori, Chappati, few of the famed rice preparations such as Ghee Pongal or Puliyodarai (tamarind rice) particularly if the family comes from Thanjavur, known as the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu.

Traditionally, sweets are eaten first. After having worked through the preliminaries, the long haul starts with rice. Sambar is added to rice and eaten with maybe a sprinkling of ghee. This is followed by rice with Kuzhambu and rice with Rasam. A final round of rice with curd or buttermilk signals the end of meals. Though there are varieties of kuzhambu, only one will be on offer in a given day. A banana may be served last.

After the meals, betel leaves and nuts are chewed in a leisurely way. Hearty banter and small talks of the times gone by are discussed with nostalgia. It is a time to reminisce the past. The betel leaf chewing is a traditional habit and was a preserve of the older folks. The betel leaf is packed into a little 'package' with edible calcium paste layered on top and a pinch of coarsely powdered betel nuts.

Commonly consumed items

Rice is the major staple food of most of the Tamil people. Lunch or Dinner is usually a meal of steamed rice, served with accompanying items, which typically include sambar, dry curry, rasam, kootu and thayir (curd, but as used in India refers to yoghurt) or more (buttermilk).

Tiffin or Light meals, which is often served for breakfast or as an evening snack, usually include one or more dishes like idli,Pongal, Dosai, Chapathi, Sevai, Vadai which are of 2 kinds - (medhuvadai meaning soft vadai and paruppuvadai meaning lentils vadai) Vadai.

Tiffin or light meals is served for breakfast or as a snack. These are usually one or more dishes like Idli, Dosai, Idiyappam, Pongal and Vadai along with coconut Chutney, Sambar and Milagai podi. Tiffin is usually accompanied by hot filter coffee, the signature beverage of the city.

Chettinad dishes like appam, uthappam.

Parota made with maida or all-purpose flour, perhaps similar to the north Indian wheat flour-based paratha.

Upma, made from wheat (rava), onion, green chillies. May also be substituted with broken rice granules, flattenned rice flakes, Or almost any other cereal grain instead of broken wheat.

Sevai or idiyappam, Rice noodles made out of steamed rice cakes.

Coffee is the most popular beverage. Coffee is a major social institution in Southern Indian Tamil tradition. Its also called the Madras (a) Chennai Filter Coffee and is unique to this part of the world. They generally use gourmet coffee beans of the premium Peaberry or the less expensive Arabica variety. The making of filter coffee is like a ritual, as the coffee beans are first roasted and then powdered. Sometimes they add chicory to enhance the aroma. They then use a filter set, few scoops of powdered coffee, enough boiling water is added to prepare a very dark liquid called the decoction. A 3/4 mug of hot milk with sugar, a small quantity of decoction is then served in Dabarah/Tumbler set, a unique Coffee cup.

Another popular beverage is strongly brewed tea found in the thousands of small tea stalls across the state of Tamil Nadu and adjoining areas.

Dosai, crepes made from a fermented batter of rice and urad dal (Black gram), and is accompanied by Sambar; also see Masala dosai

Idli, steamed rice-cakes, prepared from a fermented batter of rice and urad dal (Black gram), and side-dishes are usually different kinds of chutney or sambhar

Upma/Uppittu, prepared from semolina (rava), onion, green chillies, and certain spices

Puliyodarai, Puli=Tamarind, thorai/thoran=fry, is a popular Tamil dish and widely specialised among Tamil Iyengars and famous throughout Karnataka as Puliyogare. It is a mixture of fried tamarind paste and cooked rice. The tamarind paste is fried with sesame oil, asofoetida & fenugreek powder, dried chilly, groundnuts, split chickpea, urad dal, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves, turmeric powder and seasoned with light jaggery and salt.

Sambar, a thick stew of lentils with vegetables and seasoned with exotic spices
Rasam, lentil soup with pepper, coriander and cumin seeds
Thayir sadam, steamed rice with curd
Sevai or Idiyappam, rice noodles made out of steamed rice cakes.
Appam
Kottu

South Indian Coffee, also known as Madras Filter Coffee, is a sweet milky coffee popular in Tamil Nadu. It is quite similar to the Cappuccino and Latte varieties of coffee in the United States of America.

Other snack items include murukku, seedai, bajji, mixture, sevu, and pakoda which are typically savory items.

Specialities

Koozh - Porridge, also called Kanji. In earlier times, this was considered as a poor man's breakfast and lunch. But in current times, where health fads are in vogue, this is considered as a rich man's health drink. ^{[citation needed]}

Kootu - a stew of vegetables or varieties of spinach, with a small amount of lentils, tamarind and black pepper which makes for a side dish for a meal consisting of rice, sambhar and rasam.

Influence abroad

Historically, Tamil cuisine has traveled to many parts of the world. Most notably traces were found by archeologists that Tamil cuisines were supplied to the ancient Rome. It traveled to Greece, Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand via traders (Nagarathar) from Tamil Nadu who are Karaikudi Chettiars. Along with Chinese, it has influenced these international cuisines to what they are today. South African Indian cooking is also influenced by Tamil cuisine, which was brought by Indians in the late 19th century.

Culinary influence from other parts of the world

Chennai is a major tourist destination, so it's also popular for cuisines from other parts of the world. While Indian (which includes a diverse range of cuisines from other states of India), European Continental, and Chinese cuisine have been around for a long time, Mexican, Italian, Thai, Korean, Japanese and Mediterranean cuisine to name a few, have become popular with many restaurants exclusively specialising in these cuisines.

Tamil culinary terminology absorbed in English

The word curry is an anglicisation of the Tamil word kari. ^[2]

The Tamil phrase milagu thanneer meaning pepper soup, literally pepper water, has been adapted in English as mulligatawny. ^[3]

The word Mango is derived from the Tamil word Maangaai.^[4]^[5]

The English word Rice may have been ultimately derived from Tamil Arisi. The Kannada Akki is a cognate with same roots. ^[6]

Pittu- Made with roasted rice flour or roasted rice flour and steamed mida/ Flour is mixed with warm water and broken into small lumps. It is steamed pittu cylinder, Grated coconut is used in between portions to make small wheels,

References

DeWitt, Dave and Nancy Gerlach. 1990. The Whole Chile Pepper Book. Boston : Little Brown and Co.

External links