It is his quest to ensure authenticity in the menu of a specialty South Indian restaurant that sent Chef Praveen Anand to the furthest corners of the southern states. Always interested in the history of cuisines and a keen researcher, the executive chef of the Park Sheraton, Chennai, and custodian of the Dakshin brand, found himself in the coastal town of Keelakkarai, delving into the dishes of the Muslim communites there—the seafaring Maraickayars, and the Ravuthars who are shepherds. They added ‘maasi’, a super-dried tuna, to many of their dishes and made ‘sutriyan’, meat or seafood gravies with rice flour dumplings in them. Few people outside these small communities are aware that these traditions even exist, and even within them knowledge is restricted to a diminishing older generation.
“It is true of hundreds of dishes in this part of the country,” says Anand, who believes that the end of the joint family tradition has caused most culinary creations that take a lot of time, effort and many hands to lose currency. “Traditional dishes like ‘pootarekulu’ from the Godavari region and ‘vellai paniyaram’ of the Chettiars are rare now,” says the chef.
Unwilling to settle for mere nostalgia, Anand is part of a small band who are ambassadors for foods that were once part of our rich culinary heritage and are slowly disappearing from home kitchens. At Dakshin, Anand is constantly showcasing forgotten recipes and indigenous ingredients. Based on his research, he has created special menus—featuring the now-forgotten ‘Creole’ cooking of Pondicherry and classics from the Pandiya kingdom, traces of which still linger in hidden corners of Madurai, one of Anand’s favourite food cities. He has served menus drawn from the Paka-Shastra, a cookbook published in Madras in January 1891 which includes recipes for a ‘gooseberry payasam’, and done his bit to preserve the cooking of the Naattukottai Chettiars.
The movement is not confined to luxury restaurants. Young entrepreneur Raja Murugan is a tireless campaigner for reclaiming our food traditions. His start-up, Nalla Soru, spreads awareness about the wealth of ancient ingredients, such as millets and the wisdom of making these a part of our everyday eating. Nalla Soru campaigns in schools, colleges and canteens about the benefits of eating millets, one of the oldest ingredients known to Indians. His start-up venture cooks and caters entire menus created from millets and local, seasonal produce, taking cues from ancient recipes. “The Tamil Nadu government is now promoting the idea of Parambariya Unavu Thiruvizha, food festivals dedicated to ancient foods, and Nalla Soru is an active participant,” says Murugan.
If Nalla Soru focuses on bringing back into vogue ancient grains, Manjunath, who runs Lumiere, the organic restaurant and foodstore in Bangalore, is going back to old ways of farming and is focusing on raising free-range poultry in his farm in Varthur. “Demand currently outstrips supply and we are expanding with another free-range farm in Tali, near Bangalore,” Manjunath says, adding that he aims to grow or raise all the perishables for the restaurant.
Siddha medicine practitioner Dr G Sivaraman has also been batting for ancient ingredients—top among them being the minor millets—and traditional methods of eating in his widely read column for a Tamil weekly. The rising popularity of eating traditional foods is reflected in the unassuming Uzhavar Unagam in the food-loving city of Madurai. Set up by the in-the-news bureaucrat U Sahayam when he was district collector, it is now a much-frequented spot for dishes made from minor millets.