 |
|
Even through the dense sheets of heavy rain, the tall
vertical white sign is unmistakable. It says ‘Toddy’ in both Malayalam
and English, inviting passersby at one of the many busy roads in
Udayamperoor, Ernakulam district.
But it might as well have been an
item of adornment because five minutes after crossing the sign we are
hopelessly lost and stop an old, lungi-clad man for directions to the
toddy shop, locally known as kallu shap (‘kallu’ is liquor in
Malayalam). It is tough to read his expression: it wavers between
astonishment and disgust at having been stopped by a seemingly desperate
woman who wants to get to the nearest liquor shop in broad daylight.
After
several bends in the road, misleading signs and judgemental old men, we
pull over at the Mullapandal toddy shop, where we wait for a good ten
minutes before we can find parking space. And once inside, we jostle for
standing space with drunk men, who loudly object to our taking pictures
before calming down with more toddy. Clearly, nothing can be a
deterrent once a Malayali makes up his mind to get sloshed.
In the kallu kitchen
The
shap has both a common area and private rooms, each with a few chairs
and a table thrown together, where a group or even a family can eat.
Earlier, the kallu shap was mainly a blue collar hangout joint, but now
it attracts all kinds, from college students to celebs.
It's the
small office room in the shap where customers head for their takeaways.
Here, a rickety old wooden table doubles up as a cash counter and the
shap manager Subramanium’s computer. When we meet, Subramanium is busy
scrawling the day’s accounts on the wooden table with a white chalk as
and when an order is placed. “I am too used to this,” he smiles
sheepishly, when he sees us staring at the desk. He readily agrees to
let us pop into his kitchen and instructs a worker to lead us there.
The
heady smell of toddy is slowly replaced by the scintillating aroma of
raw spices, freshly grated coconut, cooked meat and fish curry as we
approach the kitchen. Six to seven women are hard at work, bending over
massive aluminium vessels, stirring curries and squinting through the
smoke. Unlike hotels and restaurants, kallu shaps have women running the
kitchen just like in most Kerala homes. These ladies start work at 8am,
and make more than 20 different dishes in sufficient quantities to feed
more than 300 people every day.
The head cook is Radha, who has
been working at kallu shaps for more than 15 years, churning out
karimeen fry, kappa (tapioca), kakka (mussles) fry, karimeen polichadu,
prawns, crab, fish head curry, rabbit meat, duck meat and pork, with
generous infusions of chillies, kuru mulaku (pepper) and coconut. So
does she make all this yummy spicy stuff at her home too? “It never
turns out the same at home. At the kallu shap, we have so many
ingredients. And because we make it in large quantities, the frying
happens in a lot more oil than we use at home,” says Radha.
At
Radha’s behest, we order a plate of prawns fry, karimeen polichadu,
kappa and fish curry. For karimeen polichadu, pearl spot is first soaked
in turmeric water and then marinated in a peppery masala ground with
ginger, garlic and shallots. Five hours later, the fish is fried in
coconut oil, then wrapped in a plantain leaf and steamed.
At our
table, a seductive smell of coconut oil, spices and fried onions emanate
from our karimeen fry. Once we open the banana leaf, the aroma hits us
in full force, leaving us momentarily stunned. The flavours of the spice
mixture, coconut and karimeen come together like a symphony, thanks to
the long marination. While the prawns have a balanced taste of tamarind,
red chilli, coconut and cashewnut, the curry is so spicy that it makes
our
eyes water.
Why is the taste of this food almost impossible
to replicate at other restaurants and hotels? For one, all dishes are
still prepared on wood stoves. The women grind and prepare their own
masala mixtures. The men at the shap buy meat, vegetables and other
provisions everyday in just the required quantities, so that they never
have to use stored items. Also, as Radha shyly points out, a woman’s
hand can make a dish extra delicious.
a rabbit in the curry
Some 15 kilometers from Kochi city is the
Nettoor
Toddy Bar, strategically built to face the backwaters. Here, rabbit
meat is the house speciality, says Padmini, who runs the kitchen with
one other woman. The toddy shop also used to serve crane meat, before it
got banned.
“Rabbit meat is the hardest to cook,” says Padmini.
“You have to cook the meat for almost three hours before you can use
it.” Crushed ginger, onions, spices, coconut and water are cooked
together in an aluminium vessel till it reaches a semi-solid consistency
(called vazhattiyathu). The rabbit is then added to this mixture.
Padmini
opens one of the spice tins and invites us to smell her specially
grounded curry powder. One whiff is all it takes to leave us salivating.
On
its own, kallu shap food might seem too spicy but when coupled with
toddy, essentially a sweet drink, the combination is tough to beat, we
are told. And so, we sit down with a plate of puttu (rice cake), fish
curry and a glass of toddy to put the theory to test. Sure enough, the
fish curry is so spicy that we are tempted to gulp down the toddy like
water. But the alcoholic drink’s inherent sweetness puts the fire out,
helping the meal strike a delightful spicy-sweet balance throughout.
“Fish curry that is a day old tastes the best,” explains Rameshan, one
of the helpers at the shap. “It gives the tamarind and all the other
spices time to mingle and settle down, giving the curry a very powerful
flavour. Customers specifically ask for fish curry that is a day old.”
Two
days later while dining at an upscale hotel in Kovalam, we order the
karimeen polichadu, hoping to revisit some of that mind-blowing flavour.
It 's a damp squib, devoid of salt, or any other distinctive flavour
for that matter. It seems a very bland version of the kallu shap’s
karimeen polichadu. That's when it hit us. The kallu shap has spoilt us,
probably for life. p_anu@dnaindia.net
|
