The Chettinad Breakfast Club

Two of my seniors who were on this trip are from Chettinad. And so when we were in their towns they hosted us, showed us around, and best of all, they each fed us a traditional home-cooked breakfast!

The first home-made breakfast we had was in Karaikudi, at the home of Thiagu, my senior, and Shiva, my classmate (who are cousins). They belong to the Chettiar community. Chettiars are a banking and trading community.

They served us a breakfast of melt-in-mouth idlis (softer than any I’d eaten before), vadas, sambar, coconut chutney, pongal, and the most delicious black rice pudding! The pudding was made of a type of black rice called "Kavanarsi", which is grown in the Karaikudi region. The rice is boiled till soft, mashed and mixed with ghee, sugar and grated coconut. It had a sticky texture, and sort of creamy, earthy flavour that I cannot seem to find the right word for! There was something about it that was so indulgent, yet not in a way that made you feel sick from eating too much. Full from breakfast, I only had one serving, but I felt like I could easily have polished off 3-4 heaped helpings that morning!

Clockwise from the top: vada, black rice pudding, pongal, sambar, chutney and idlis

The second traditional home-cooked meal we had was in Thanjavur, at the home of Jones, another one of my seniors. He belongs to the Christian Nadar community. Nadars are a community from South India and parts of Sri Lanka, and are primarily coconut tree climbers.

They served us a breakfast of sweet paniyaram (rice dumplings), with three types of chutneys, appams in sweet coconut milk, dosa with mutton curry, mushroom dosa (with spicy mushroom masala inside), and raktha poriyal. Yes, raktha poriyal is quite literally blood stir fry! ­Coagulated mutton blood is stir fried with coconut, curry leaves, channa daal and mustard seeds. Contrary to what some might think, it was very tasty! It tasted just like scrambled eggs -- and didn't have the distinct iron flavour of bone marrow, like I'd expected it to. 

Clockwise from the top: sweet paniyaram, chutney, raktha poriyal, more chutneys, and shahi tukda with rabdi (the last one is not traditional to chettinad!) On the plate to the left is appam in sweet coconut milk.

These were just two breakfasts… I can’t wait to tell you about all the other meals we had in those four short days! I reckon I’ve easily gained a few kilos this week.