PUDUCHERRY: For more than three centuries, Puducherry was the stronghold of the French in India. A struggle for independence ensured that they left the Indian shores but not before leaving behind a flourishing legacy. The French influence is felt everywhere - in art and architecture, the use of the French language, the red kepis worn by Puducherry policeman, the popularity of the game Petanque and many other things. But perhaps the one area where there was a definite fusion was cuisine. The French love their food with a passion as do the Indians. While Indian gastronomy is mainly appreciated for its age-old art of blending a vareity of spices resulting in lavish exotic dishes, the French are partial to blander flavours. It was only a matter of time before Tamil spices ended up meeting French cuisine, giving birth to a wonderful hybrid - Puducherry cuisine. The latter is still being practised by a few select families in the Puducherry and Karaikal regions. But strangely enough, Puducherry cuisine does not figure in the menu of any restaurant in the Union Territory.
A touch of Indianness through the use of spices like garam masala, bay leaf, ghee, cashew nuts, coconut milk with some elements of the French style of cooking marks the Puducherry cuisine. There are other distinct styles of Puducherry cuisine that include the food cooked in Tamil- speaking Muslim homes of Karaikal, where the cuisine has come in for some Mughal influence. The recipes of food cooked in Brahmin sub-caste homes have influence of ayurvedic principles and also some cuisine that evolved from a Malaysian influence on food after people from Puducherry travelled there are unique to Puducherry, says Lourdes Tirouvanziam-Louis. In fact, she had explored the entire realm of Puducherry culinary in her book titled “Cuisine Traditionnelle de Pondichery’ (Traditional Pondicherry Cooking) in French in 2003, which was the first ever book on the subject. The revised version has come out in book stores earlier this week.
“Three years of research led me to dig out old recipes from forgotten manuscripts with elderly people being approached for more precision on the ingredients and the methods of preparation that were often kept secret,” says Lourdes.
Citing a few examples, she says the popular French soup, bouillabaisse, made with fruits de mer (fruits of the sea) like fish, crabs, shrimps and flavoured with pepper has in the hands of the Puducherrians turned into pouillanbaisse. The latter has everything its French counterpart has, but with ghee, green chillies, bay leaf, cinnamon, carrots, beans, potatoes, turmeric and coconut milk thrown in! The same goes for giogot daube - mutton baked with pepper. In the local version, the mutton is cooked first, then fried with garlic and onions, roasted and finally, cooked again. Tomato, is used sparingly. But lime provides its share of sourness, as in the delicious apazha meen roast (lime fish roast).
The book has no photographs with all illustrations having been drawn - linear drawing - in back and white by Puducherry’s local artists. They have drawn indigenous vegetables and traditional utensils ( idli kundam, chathy) measures for weight ( paddy, maganni, ajjaku) traditional stone grinders (ammi, ropu ural, ropu edram) traditional trays ( moram) and baskets (kuday) - things which are lost to the modern kitchens.
Lourdes Tirouvanziam Louis, who still lives in Pondicherry with her doctor husband Bernard Louis, recalls that the 350-page book flew off the shelves when it came out in 2003. So popular was it with members of the Puducherrian diaspora that she was not even left with a copy of her own.
“What really propelled me to write it was my desire to safeguard the cuisine,” says Lourdes.
With growing awareness of the interest of “outsiders” in the cuisine, Lourdes is now translating her first cook-book, originally written in French, into English and Tamil; the second one, also in French, will be translated too, eventually.