Kerala’s festival of Onam, which commemorates the return of the mythological King Mahabali to his kingdom, is celebrated across the state and communities. This 10-day cultural and harvest festival culminates on Thiruvonam (on 15 September, this year), the last and most auspicious day, with an Onam sadya, a traditional feast.
What makes this meal exciting is that it has several regional variations. Kerala can be viewed as comprising three parts—the north (also part of the Malabar region) has districts like Kasaragod, Kannur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, and Malappuram. Central Kerala has Palakkad, Thrissur, and Ernakulam, among others. Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Kollam, and Trivandrum are districts of southern Kerala, also known as the Travancore region.
A sadya will have the banana leaf filled with pazham (ripe bananas), ethakka upperi (nendran banana chips), sharkara varatti (jaggery-coated banana chips), a chammanthi (a dry coconut chutney), inji puli (ginger relish) and a range of pickles. Classic sadya dishes include parippu (lentils), mathanga erissery (pumpkin gravy), olan (ash gourd gravy), pineapple kichadi (sweet and sour dish), avial (seasonal vegetables in coconut and yogurt), kalan (raw bananas and coconut), thoran (stir-fried vegetables with coconut), kootu curry (yam-based), sambar, rasam, local matta rice and seasoned buttermilk. The meal usually ends with various kinds of payasam—like pal (milk), ada pradhaman (made with rice flakes, coconut milk, and jaggery), pazham pradhaman (banana and jaggery) and more.
“In central Kerala, like Thrissur, there’s meat on the menu, but, in places like Kannur in the north, a fish fry is added. In Kozhikode, I have even seen chicken or fish curries included,” says Ummi Abdulla, author of A Kitchen Full of Stories (2018), the first book on Mappila cuisine.
Bengaluru-based Tresa Francis, founder and chef of the catering service Travancore Tasties and the restaurant Coracle, contrasts the pineapple pachadi of southern Kerala with Thrissur’s Madhura curry. While both feature pineapple and coconut, the pachadi includes yoghurt, whereas Madhura curry adds grapes and often omits the yoghurt. She finds it interesting that the kappa (tapioca), which is a staple in Kerala cuisine, does not find a place on any sadya.
There are climatic reasons to why sadya dishes are cooked in certain ways. According to chef Regi Mathew, co-owner Kappa Chakka Kandhari (KCK; Bengaluru and Chennai), “The kalan in the southern parts is like a moru (yogurt) curry, whereas in the central region of Thrissur, the same recipe becomes kurukku kalan, a drier version. Similarly, the Thrissur sadya has the erissery in a thick, dry consistency, whereas, in Trivandrum, it’s a semi-gravy. The Thrissur avial is drier compared to that of central Travancore or Trivandrum.” He explains that in his conversations with Unnikrishnan Namboodiri, an Ayurveda medical practitioner, temple priest and lead sadya chef for KCK’s menus this year, Mathew learnt that drier variations tend to have a longer shelf life, considering the heat of the northern Kerala regions, and also give a good bite to the vegetables. “Additionally, the souring agents differ. There’s yogurt in the north and central regions, but not in the south. Tamarind, and in some places even bilimbi (tree sorrel) is used,” he says.
Last year, the culinary students of the department of hotel management, Christ College, Bengaluru, with the guidance of chef instructor Jonathan Bhavyan Gnanasekhar, set out an elaborate sadya for diners, as part of a culinary showcase. Gnanasekhar unpacks several influences on the sadya.
Over the centuries, Kerala has welcomed people from various places, India and abroad, driven largely by trade. Trivandrum was a major seaport, and besides seeing Dutch and Portuguese settlers, it had traders from the east and west of India dock here before heading to the Gulf.
The parippu in north Kerala is thick, dry, and made with toor dal (pigeon pea), whereas in the Travancore region in the south, it is a runny gravy made of moong dal (green gram). Gnanasekhar attributes this difference in consistency to the influence of the Dutch and Portuguese, who preferred to have stew-like dishes as a meal, leading to its evolution this way.
Another interesting influence, also attributed to traders, is Trivandrum’s inclusion of boli and pal payasam in the sadya. Boli, similar to Maharashtra’s puran poli and Karnataka’s holige or obattu, is a sweet flatbread stuffed with chana dal (Bengal gram).
“Eating boli with pal payasam poured over it is seen only in Trivandrum. The tradition of ending a meal with a sweet was introduced by the East India Company. Dry sweets travelled well from England to India, popularising the concept. As British control over key ports tightened, Indian traders began using southern Indian ports, which were less restricted. This led to the introduction of local dry sweets with a long shelf life, like boli, to Trivandrum. Adding pal payasam to it was a way of staying true to one’s roots while imbibing a new culinary tradition,” explains Gnanasekhar.
Every person making the sadya also brings in their influences, family recipes, and more. What stands true, is that in all its avatars, it is truly a feast fit for a king.
Ruth Dsouza Prabhu is a features journalalist based in Bengaluru.
