HYDERABAD: Kerala Cuisine is widely considered to be hands down one of the most flavoursome in India — a real treat for someone who craves rich, spicy, and tangy flavours. And if you are ever in Kerala, the gastronomic experience has to include Kerala’s toddy shops. Shaaps, or kallu kada as they are known in Malayalam, serve the popular toddy made from the sap of the coconut tree. These shops have food as well, but its singular purpose can often be to aid and abet the consumption of toddy. When the stomach is on fire from the spice of beef or fish fry, the pungent, milky toddy is the perfect antidote.
There’s no menu at these shops and the family cooks up whatever’s fresh and in season. During my visit almost at the end of the summer meant three kinds of pickles are offered from tender mangoes. Plus a salad of sardines tossed with red chillies, turmeric, lime and freshly grated coconut, peppery roasted prawns and fiery red fish curry. There’s also fresh Karimeen from the backwaters which are marinated and fried to order. The spices scorch, so you’re compelled to buy more and more of the slightly sweet, slightly tart toddy to douse the heat.
The toddy shop cuisine is completely unique. Some of the Shaap specialities include Karimeen Pollichathu — spiced freshwater fish that’s wrapped inside banana leaves and fried in coconut oil. This is served with a side of steamed tapioca or kappa as it's locally known. There are also duck mappas, shredded duck meat slow cooked in a spiced coconut sauce, meen thala curry made with fish heads and coconut milk, and fresh water clams roasted with spice and coconut shavings. Everything is made from local ingredients found within a few kilometres of the shop.
Coconut features in absolutely every dish. Kerala, in Malayalam, literally means “land of coconuts,” and toddy shops are very much an ode to that land, as well as the waterways that permeate and surround it. No fancy fine dining restaurant, however pretty, can give me back that sense of visceral enjoyment of food and drink found in one small toddy shop in Kerala.