It was on one of those rainy days that my taste buds hankered for comfort food. Not just something hot or spicy. I had to have kanji. No matter how globalised a Malayali’s tastes are, when it comes to comfort food, there is nothing to beat the kanji – piping hot rice gruel with payar, chammanthi , pappadam and so on.
Kanji is still the flavour of home and nostalgia for many Malayalis. Many other ethnic eats that were once the staple of households have conquered the tastes of the city. But the kanji, I assumed, would be too down to earth and bland to be on the menus in the restaurants in the city. Thus began my flavour hunt for the kanji. Surprise, surprise, not only was kanji very much served in some hotels, there were still many, age no bar, who had to have kanji for dinner. No porotta or pizza has been able to vanquish it from a Malayali’s plate, as witnessed by the demand for Kerala’s own kanji.
Kerala house and Pathayam near Statue Junction, the canteen at MLA Hostel, Palayam, Dhanya Hotel and Devyvee at Kaithamukku are some of the eateries that serve kanji with a variety of side dishes. What is served with the kanji varies from payar thoran, chammanthi and pappadam to asthram (curd-based yam curry) that is available at Trivandrum Hotel, near the Secretariat.
I found that there were many like me who hungered for kanji. Leading the crowd are perhaps our representatives to the Legislative Assembly, many of whom prefer to have kanji to other dishes for dinner.
“Most of the MLAs ask for kanji at night, that too wheat kanji,” says a worker at the canteen. Jithin A., a techie from Kasaragod, who was tucking into the kanji at Kerala House says: “I’ve tried and tested almost all the hotels. Finally I zeroed in on kanji, it feels so nice to have it for dinner.”
Many medical practitioners swear by kanji. They say it is the best for dinner as it is light on the digestive system. “It is the best food you can have at night, because it gets digested very easily. Also, it is light on the pockets,” says Gangadharan, who runs Pathayam.
Every evening, except on Sundays, the restaurant, which primarily serves naturopathic food makes kanji for around 100 customers. “Of the kanji-loving crowd, nearly 80 percent are regular customers. We have people from different walks of life coming in. Some of them come with their families,” says Dr. Gangadharan.
For Rajasekharan Nair, the proprietor of Dhanya Hotel, kanji has been a permanent fixture of his hotel menu for the last 20 years. While most of these hotels stick to the kanji (made of chemba rice), cherupayar, pappadam, chutney and pickle combination, a few of them serve different side-dishes every day.
And the best part is everywhere, you can ask for more!
The pioneer
Sree Guruvayoorappan Hotel near Gandhari Amman Kovil has been serving this comfort food for 37 years now. “When I started this hotel, many hotels were serving rice and tiffin at night. I wanted to give something different. Thus I started serving kanji, with payar, chuttapappadam (roasted pappadam), mango or lime in brine, and chutney in the evenings. That was even before this hotel had got its name. If you wish, you can even have the organic spoon, that is jackfruit tree leaf!,” says Parameswaran Nair, who runs the hotel.
Choices galore
Kanji can be made using different varieties of rice, wheat, broken wheat, fenugreek, dasamoolam (medicinal mix), cumin, green gram, and rava, to name a few.
