BharatSangraha

Tulu Nadu · Western Coastal Strip

Foodways

Coconut in every form — oil, milk, and above all fresh grated flesh roasted with spice and ground wet into a paste. That paste, the gassi masala, is the region's signature and the thing that separates this kitchen from its neighbours: the coast above it sours with kokum, the coast below it sours with kudampuli, and Tulu Nadu sours with ordinary tamarind while putting all its character into a ground coconut base coloured with Byadagi chilli. Byadagi is a low-heat, high-colour chilli, so a Mangalorean fish curry looks far angrier than it tastes. Four kitchens run in parallel and borrow constantly — the Bunt and Billava household kitchen, the Brahmin matha and hotel kitchen, the Catholic kitchen with its vinegar and pork, and the Beary kitchen with its own bread and steamed cakes.

Primary cooking medium

Coconut oil, for everythingGhee, in the matha kitchen and the Udupi hotel repertoireRendered pork fat in the Catholic kitchenCoconut milk used as a cooking liquid rather than a finish

Dominant sour agents

Tamarind — the default, not kokum and not kudampuliBimbli (bilimbi), used fresh in fish curryRaw mango and dried mango skinCurd and buttermilkToddy vinegar in the Catholic kitchenKokum at the northern edge only, where the Konkan register begins

Spice register

Byadagi chilli for deep red colour with very little heat, coriander seed, fenugreek, mustard, curry leaf and a great deal of fresh coconut, dry-roasted and then wet-ground. Black pepper is grown here but used lightly. Against Kerala below, which leads with pepper and green chilli, and against the Konkan above, which leads with kokum and dried prawn, Tulu Nadu leads with roasted coconut.

Staple grains and carbs

Kuchalakki — coarse red parboiled rice, boiled or eaten as bajil (beaten rice)Rice flour, for the whole dosa, rotti and dumpling repertoireRagi in the ghat foothillsJackfruit and colocasia, treated as staples in their seasonWheat only as an import; there is no indigenous wheat bread here

Preservation methods

Sun-dried mackerel, anchovy and prawn, salted on the sand at Malpe and UllalKanile — tender bamboo shoot, soaked in changed water for days to leach it, then pickled or cookedHappala and sandige — rice and gourd wafers sun-dried through summer for the monsoon monthsJackfruit boiled down to a set halbai or dried into slabsRaw mango and bimbli held in brine for the yearAreca-sheath and clay storage for the rice pantry of a guttu household

Signature techniques

Gassi masala grinding

Coriander, chilli, fenugreek and pepper are dry-roasted separately, then ground wet with fresh grated coconut on a stone until the paste holds oil. The paste is the dish; the meat or fish is only what it is poured over. A gassi thickened with dry powder instead of wet-ground coconut is a different food.

Also found in: Malabar, Canara Coast, Kochi & Central Kerala

Unfermented raw-rice batter

Raw rice is soaked and ground to a batter as thin as milk and cooked immediately, with no fermentation and no souring. Neer dosa comes out lace-thin, white and sweet-tasting. It is the opposite discipline to the fermented idli and dosa batter of the plateau, and it will not keep for a day.

Also found in: Canara Coast, Malnad

Leaf and sheath steaming

Spiced rice paste is spread on colocasia leaves, rolled and steamed for patrode; the same batter is steamed in jackfruit-leaf cups stitched with coconut-leaf ribs for kotte kadubu, or in a cone of screwpine or coconut frond for moode. The leaf is a mould and a flavouring at once, and each leaf gives a different result.

Also found in: South Konkan, Goa & Gomantak, Malabar

Toddy leavening

Fresh sur — unfermented palm toddy — is used to raise a ground-rice batter overnight for sanna, giving a steamed cake far lighter than a yeast or soda version. Toddy tapped after morning goes sour and will not work, so the batter has to be set on the day the palm is cut.

Also found in: Goa & Gomantak, Canara Coast

Bafat masala blending

A dry blend of chilli, coriander, cumin, pepper, cinnamon, clove and turmeric, sun-dried and ground in bulk once a year and stored for the household's meat cooking. Every Mangalorean Catholic family keeps its own proportions, and the blend is the reason two pork bafats from the same street taste different.

Also found in: Goa & Gomantak

Ghee reduction roasting

Marinated chicken is cooked down in ghee with a wet Byadagi paste until the gravy leaves the pan and coats the meat in a dark, glossy layer. A twentieth-century restaurant technique from Kundapura that has since been applied to prawn, mushroom and paneer across the country.

Also found in: Malnad

The foodway signature of Tulu Nadu — cooking medium, souring agents, spice register, staple grains and the techniques that define it. (6)