Detours on a food trail

When you’re looking for good food, surprises are welcome

BANGALORE, 22/04/2007: Coffee kingdom of Coorg with fragrance of coffee blossoms (a tourist trying to smell the Coffee buds fragrance). Due to proper rain shower this year coffee flower blossom attracting tourists at Shanivarasanthe and sorrounding areas in Coorg District, Coffee planters are also very happy this year. Visitors can visit Coorg any time between November to April. Coffee plant blossom between March-April. Photo: Sampath Kumar 22-04-2007

I have come to Coorg looking for two things: white coffee flowers and dark pandi curry.

The coffee flowers have evaded me. I have not bothered to crosscheck the information I have about the time of their bloom and have reached Coorg only to be greeted by torrential rains. So, I pin my hopes on the other thing: Pandi curry.

I have heard many stories, watched numerous food shows, and read reams about the rich, flavourful treat from the region, and even though pork is not my first choice of meat, I am eager to experience the phenomenon called pandi curry.

Going by the stories I have heard, I already have a flavour of the dish in my mind: I have imagined it to be hot and spicy, with thick gravy, which tastes somewhat like the spicy mutton preparations of Andhra or the peppery chicken of Kerala. I could not be more wrong. The curry is spicy and yet bland (yes, such a combination does exist), I find it too high on spice and too low on flavour, and it does nothing for my taste buds. I make do with the beautiful rice chapattis called akki otti and some bland chicken.

With both my motives of travelling 2500 kilometres from home having been defeated, to say that I am now dejected will not be an exaggeration.

“What is a broken heart that cannot be mended by good food?” says my host Kaveri, when I share my disappointment with her. In a matter of minutes, I have a plateful of the most crispy onion and potato bhajjis, accompanied by cups of strong coffee. I am not even done with it when her cook, the ever-smiling Lakshmi, asks what I would like for dinner.

I feast on a dinner of the perfect poriyal and parathas a few hours later in candlelight, accompanied by a steady stream of rain falling on the asbestos rooftop.

Breakfast is perfectly-steamed rava idlis, hand-ground coconut chutney, and endless bowls of tomato sambar with baby potatoes. The idlis are soft as cotton, the sambar full of flavour — hot, spicy, tangy and sour all at once — and the chutney ground to perfection. I spend close to an hour enjoying every bite of the food and listening to Lakshmi sing a melancholic tune in Kannada.

As I get ready to pack, I realise Kaveri was indeed correct. The steaming idlis, the spicy sambar, the velvety chutney, and Lakshmi’s song have more than made up for my disappointment.

I promise to come back only for them.