We eat to live for sure. But as a Chennaiite I would surely like to live for eating. I can surely say that Chennai is a place where one can satisfy all his gastronomical desires. Featuring various type of people and classes, five star hotels to kaiyeandhi bhavans (road side food carts) and a wide range of cuisines Chennai is the place where anyone can satisfy both his/her palate and stomach. Though most of the items are inherited from various regions by the immigrants in Chennai, but gradually they had been changed and adopted to suit Chennai’s style. In the following lines I have tried to draw out my experiences and some features associated with the popular food items of Chennai.
Filter Kaapi:
The smell and taste of filter coffee definitely constitutes to a perfect morning in Chennai. Though coffee is mostly favoured in the morning time, chennaiites consume it whenever they feel like having it. Most of the Chennai homes (especially the Brahmin households) start their day with consuming coffee and reading newspaper. It may seem that people take coffee in the morning for digesting the daily news published. Some even go to hotel early in morning for just drinking coffee.
Of the many coffees that I had in my life, I cannot forget having coffee in an unknown Iyer’s home. I and my classmate were roaming around Arumbakkam randomly selecting some houses and conducting questionnaires on behalf of IITM. As a last house of the day we knocked into a independent home. A lady came out and we explained our purpose of the visit and she reluctantly agreed to take part in the survey. As we were carrying out the survey at the doorstep, the man of that house came home and asked us to come inside. He then called some female name and ordered coffee. I thought that the lady would bring in coffee, but to my surprise a beautiful good looking girl bought us standard filter kaapi in stainless steel tumbler. Realizing that my friend had began the questionnaire with the guy I just kept quiet sipping the coffee and looking at the girl. I couldn’t judge whether the coffee or the girl was nice. But I found that even after stepping out of the house the coffee was still in my taste buds rather than the face of the girl in my memory.
Barota:
I shall assume that there can be no person in Chennai who doesn’t know about barota. It is almost ubiquitously present in Chennai and one of the hot businesses to do in the city. One may say that Chennai has the highest number of barota hotels (barota-kadai as they fondly call in Tamil), and the count is increasing day by day with new hotel popping out in each streets. I think (my guess) the name ‘barota’ and the thing itself must have originated from Punjabi ‘barata/parata’. Barota is the most common and sought after breakfast/dinner among the locals and bachelor youths in Chennai and also with the other classes also going for it sometimes.
One just needs a lengthy room facing the road, few tables and stools, Cudappah stone and cooking fuel to start a barota shop. Most of the barota shops have their cooking area at the entrance of the shop so as to exhaust out the smoke to road and to advertise themselves. One can see a barota master (man who is quite a bit experienced in preparing and rolling out the dough) making out the raw barotas with speed and perfection and frying them over the hot stone. After a set of barotas are fried over, a stack of them is made and firmly cupped together so that they become chewable. The popular side dish for barota is a gravy named saalna and it has both veg and non-veg varieties and its preparation varies from place to places. Also chilly chutney or kurma can be used as a side dish. If idli-saambar was the favourite naastha item of the past, but at present its barota and saalna.
Idli-saambar:
For many decades idli-saambar was and still is the brand ambassador for South Indian / Tamilian cuisine. It has its magic spread from restaurants in the West to the kaiyeandhi bhavans in local Chennai. Most of the credit of spreading idli-saambar’s fame to worldwide goes to the Tamilian settlers around the world and Hotel Saravana Bhavan which has established its branches in U.K., U.S., Canada and in the gulf countries.
Simple in cooking and easy to eat, idli saambar is the staple morning breakfast in most of the households of Chennai. The common style of eating idli is too squash them into pieces then sink it in saambar and consume it. If the saambar available is limited then people just gently dip pieces of idli in saambar and take it. Alternatively idli can be taken with chutney, or molaga-podi or any spicy gravy. The famous places for idlis in Chennai is Ratna café in triplicane where they have the tradition of serving 2 idlis and 1 mug of saambar (saambar is made bit sweet by adding jaggery to it), and hotel Saravana bhavan where mini ghee idlis are a famous.
Bajji:
As the sun began to sets, the kadais in tea shops around Chennai begins to boil. Slices of vazhakka (kind of a banana), onion, potato and bread are soaked in watery flour (bajji maavu) and fried in the kadai to get red hot bajjis the favourite evening snack in Chennai the most popular being vazhakka bajji. Accompanied with chutney, bajji makes a nice time pass in the evenings. Most of the tea shops serve oily bajjis with which they give newspapers for taking the oil out of them. This style has even been referred to in a Tamil film. Supplements to the bajji are bonda, masalvadai, medhu vada and samosa which are also quiet famous among snacks.
There also other famous food items such as biryani, dosa, vadakari etc which I haven’t been able to describe.
