STAPLE DIET

Rice gruel used to be our staple diet. It was accompanied with ‘Pulissery’, a yellow curry made with butter milk and pieces of pine-apple or a spicy fish curry. Apart from this we used to get a scrambled egg or ‘Chemmeen’, prawn, fry with small slices of ‘Elavan’, an unripe coconut or even with boiled green gram with coconut gratings. It is a wholesome and delicious meal. I loved to have ‘Pazamkanji’ too, rice gruel made the previous day, with ‘Pulissery’ and ‘Pappad’.  We shared this with the children who came to play with us. It is an excellent breakfast. It was only on holidays and special days that we feast on steamed rice, ‘Puttu’, with ripe banana ‘Njalipuvan’, or fried rice cake, ‘Palappams’, or  String-hoppers, ‘Idiyappam’, with mutton or chicken curry.

The steamed tapioca and Indian sardine curry is a balanced staple diet of common man. I too loved to feast on it. Rabbi Hillel who visited Cochin in 1852 writes, “There is a small fish named Tsallah or “Chala“or “Mathi” so abundant that at times five hundred is obtained for a doit-ten doits make a fanam. This is not eaten there by the rich, it is a handsome fish which is the sardine or sardinella of the Mediterranean and the esteemed food fit for the princes.” (Cochin Indian History an article by Koder, published on May 1’ 2009 in “Thodayam” by the Kerala Fine Arts Society dated.)

‘Ammachi’ insisted that the entire household should sit together for every meal and discuss about everyday events. It was a great opportunity for children to open up and interact with the entire household and that helped a great deal in building up family bonds.

Nowadays staple diets are being substituted by the fast foods that throng the market.  The media plays a vital role in deciding the tastes of individuals. 

Excerpts from

MEMOIRS

An autobiography

by

Joseph J. Thayamkeril

Lawyer, Kochi, Kerala, India.

josephjthayamkeril.blogspot.com

josephjthayamkeril@gmail.com