I had forgotten all about the magic that a banana leaf wields. There was a time when any feast in Bengal (and in many parts of the East, as well as in the South) meant food being served on banana leaves. You sat in front of a green leaf with a lime wedge (and sometimes a small mound of salt) on it. The food came in pails, and was dropped gently (or sometimes, I must admit, rather sloppily) on the leaf in front of you.
After many, many years, I had a meal on a banana leaf – and what a meal it was. I had gone to The Park in Delhi for the launch of a book on Chettinad food. Called ‘The Bangala Table: Flavours and Recipes from Chettinad’, the book has been written by Sumeet Nair and Meenakshi Meyyappan and co-authored by Jill Donenfeld. Apart from some wonderful stories and 150 recipes of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, it carries some dramatic photographs shot by Rohit Chawla.
The Bangala Table, I learnt, was a beautiful resort in Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu, run by Meyyappan and other family members. Nair went there on a holiday – and was completely bowled over. And part of the magic, he says, was the food that he ate there. That’s how the idea of a book emerged.
To mark the launch of the book, a Chettinad food festival is on at The Park. Today, alas, is the last day. For the festival, cooks from The Bangala Table were at the hotel, rustling up the dishes that they know best along with the executive chef, Abhishek Basu.
I can tell you what I ate – on the leaf before me were little mounds of tomato rice and coconut rice. Then came the men and women bearing buckets of food – pineapple curry, jackfruit, fish curry, Chettinad chicken pepper masala, mutton Chettinad, chow chow kootu (prepared with a kind of squash), plain rice with ghee, a small dal vada, a dessert called paal paniyaram – rice and urad balls in coconut milk – and almond halwa.
Each and every dish was finger-lickin’ good, and forms a part of the Chettinad festival. The food comes in four kinds of thalis. The vegetarian thali for Rs.695 (exclusive of taxes) includes soya bean kurma, spinach masiyal or chow chow kootu, onion and tomato thayir pachadi, small potato masala poriyal, mixed veggies, tomato rice, beetroot poriyal, pineapple rasam and curd rice with various kinds of accompaniments.
The non-veg thali (Rs.795) includes, apart from many of the vegetable dishes, chicken Chettinad pepper masala with parotta and chicken rasam. The seafood thali (Rs.995) also has on the menu prawn tomato masala and fish curry. The Palakaram thali (Rs.995) offers iddiappam with vegetable stew, mutton keema dosa, prawns, chicken Chettinad and other dishes.
What I really enjoy about Chettinad food is the balance of spices. Spices play a major role in the food – and a lot of the edge comes from the use of pepper – but nothing is too much, or too little. Each dish had its own taste, and I simply loved the way it ended – with a very, very rich (and equally sinful) badam halwa.
The book is a delight to go through. I have been poring over it for the last couple of days and have already zeroed in on a couple of dishes that I want to cook. First on the list is the chicken Chettinad pepper masala. Or perhaps grilled fish with ground mustard. The nandu masala – a crab dish – sounds good, too. But more of that later.
