A Step Back in Time

24 and 25 December 25, 2010

Misty and I are here at the 50-acre Olappamana Mana estate and preserve north of Cochin, Kerala. We hired a driver from the historic Ft. Cochin area for the 3-1/2 hour drive here. A drive in this part of India is unlike anything in the States. Our driver (like all others) swerves in and out of traffic seamlessly, constantly tooting his horn (like all others) and passing. Cars, trucks and huge buses share the two lane roads with auto-rickshaws and motorbikes. Dizzying. After a drive up to the mountains the day before, when we went to a spice plantation and a tea plantation, we felt as if we’d been put in a martini shaker for 13 hours. The drive to Olappamana was less blenderizing.

Back to our arrival here at the homestay of O. N. Damodaran and his wife Srideevi, host and hostess: on arrival we immediately sat down to an amazing spread of food arranged carefully on a banana leaf—all vegetarian and all “simple” but so tasty. Every food had a specific place on the leaf. A cup of soupy rasam, a beetroot sambhar (kind of curry), cucumber oolan (boiled in coconut milk), drumstick greens curry, tenderjack poriyal—young jackfruit that is pounded and seasoned, looking much like fish, but lightly savory, coriander rice, round homemade puri/pappadum fried in their own homemade coconut oil, a sweet banana pasayam made with jaggery and rice, and hot tea. All the leftovers go to staff who eat in the kitchen.

Before the first day’s afternoon tea Srideevi showed us how to make a tasty dessert: she had made a batter with ground soaked rice, which she spread on a banana leaf and topped with grated coconut, jaggery and banana lightly cooked. She wrapped them and steamed the packets for 30 minutes. WOW. I’m eating some sweets here. In fact I am eating lots here. I love this food. Misty has not been able to eat much due to unsettled stomach. I’ve been okay—a little unsettled because of the water they use here to rinse out serving dishes, but Misty says that’s okay, we will start to be acclimated. The water here comes from a well, but they drink filtered water.

The first evening Damodaran took us into one of the old buildings for a puja ritual for his grandson’s birthday for which his daughter paid. An amazing, large “painting” on the floor of the goddess Kali was drawn in colored rice powders. Then an elaborate ritual involving several men (specially trained from certain castes only) wrapped in cotton “skirts”, flowers, palm reeds, water, burning wicks and drumming was performed. We stayed through 1 hour of it. Kali was destroyed at the end. Every night we hear drumming as more pujas are performed for others. Damodaran is preserving old Hindu rituals for the younger generation and for foreigners. There are few places where non-Hindus are allowed to see this. I keep thinking of how Sandy and Field Carden, who are traveling here next year, would love this place. It’s remarkable.

I’ve mostly been attached to Srideevi in the kitchen. An hour before each meal I go and sit on a chair in the kitchen, taking notes and photos.

26 December

This AM we had a lovely spread of uppma—semolina cooked and seasoned with black mustard seeds and curry leaves. Very mild. We ate that with tiny sweet bananas. We also had boiled plantains—tender and sweet, poori deep-fried in the estate’s own coconut oil and served with potato masala, coconut chutney and bracing black tea. After breakfast we went on a “tour” of the backyard where a curry leaf tree, allspice leaf tree, sawtooth or culantro, drumstick plant, taro and a sort of large oregano-scented leaf bush rubbed elbows. Pepper plants twine around mango, coconut and jackfruit trees. It’s a jungle. You drop anything in the ground and it grows. Our northern Michigan farmers would love it.

This truly is a paradise. Except for the monsoons when everything is constantly wet and mold, my kryptonite, grows everywhere. My eyes are slightly swollen all the time from the slight mildew ever present. Our room is up high and overlooks three other ancient formal buildings from around 1700 and 1800s—very airy and not mildewy. We do lock ourselves in at night and put the ceiling fan on full force to keep mosquitoes at bay. Everyone you talk to from Delhi, Goa and Kerala says that 1.) We have no malaria nor dengue fever and 2.) It’s okay to drink the water. I keep taking doxycycline for malaria and drinking boiled or bottled water though. I’m still okay, cross my fingers. Misty is still not fully mended from her encounter with a soft omelette in the Marriott in Goa over a week ago.

Srideevi and Damodaran are youngish: 56 and 63. They are very kind and knowledgeable, treating us like honored guests. Keralite hospitality. I’m coming home with dishes that will make a wonderful South Indian cooking class. Look out.

Damodaran is a retired engineer, one of 10 children of a once very wealthy and still highly-educated family. His wife Srideevi of five children is his second cousin; they knew each other as children. Srideevi said that after she married, a woman friend came to visit and asked her how she could live so far away from a large city. Srideevi replied that she loved it here at Olappamana and had been coming here as a child. She is very low-key, beautiful and kind—she looks 40, but has three grown children, one boy and two girls who are successful, handsome and happy. All with arranged marriages. Damodaran told us that children can be taken to court if they do not take care of their parents!

They have 30 acres in rubber trees, which make them a good income. Damodaran says that his family had thousands of acres originally. They were very wealthy.

I’ve just returned from an enormous lunch feast—all without dairy made because they know I cannot tolerate it! For four hours I watched 2 men and Srideevi cook. Our menu:

Koottu: pressure cooked yam, cucumber and soaked chickpeas . Then poured into a pot with cooked channa dal or split peeled chickpeas, turmeric, black pepper and 1/2 of a coconut, ground. The koottu was simmered. The other half of the coconut was grated and fried until quite brown and stirred in at the last.

Yam Poriyal: a tempering with coconut oil, mustard seed, dried red chilies and curry leaves starts the dish. Diced yam is added with a little water and boiled until yam is cooked and water evaporates. Then salt and 1/2 of a coconut, grated, is added.

Okra Sambhar: a very soupy curry of cooked okra, tamarind, cooked toor dal and a little tomato is simmered with a ground masala of asafetida, coriander seed, fenugreek, red chilies and coconut fried in coconut oil.

Aviyal: a julienned vegetable “curry” with pumpkin, yam, carrot and green beans cooked with turmeric and tamarind water. Grated coconut is added, simmered and garnished with fresh curry leaves and a little coconut oil.

Sprouted whole moong (mung) dal: Turmeric and dal are fried for 1 minute in coconut oil then a pinch of red pepper, salt, lemon juice and cilantro are added. Crunchy, nutty and fresh.

Taro stem curry: taro stem cooked with water and turmeric. Coconut ground with cumin seed is added and simmered, then a typical tempering of mustard seed, dal and curry leaves fried in coconut oil is stirred in at the end.

We had boiled rice (soft) with fried-in-coconut-oil pappadums alongside. Dessert was a “paysayam”, a thick “soup” of split and peeled mung dal (half fried in coconut oil until quite brown) cooked with coconut milk and jaggery syrup until thick. Wow. I’d rather have that than cake any day.

For tea today we’re to have kunjipidi or small rice balls in a savory tempering of coconut oil, mustard seed, urad dal and curry leaves.

I’m off to a nap. Tommorrow morning we eat breakfast and leave around 10AM for Cochin again, where we’ll have a cooking class with Nimmy Paul, a well-known Indian chef. She’s been written up in Gourmet and RW Apple wrote about her in the New York Times. I'm very excited.