The magic of Onam Sadhya: How a chef rediscovered and celebrated the feast on a leaf

New Delhi: What are the feelings that festivals evoke in you? The gaiety, the dressing up, the giddy anticipation and of course the tradition. How did you forget the feasting often preceded by fasting? For journalist-turned-filmmaker-turned-restaurateur Arun Kumar T.R., festivals are an excuse to walk down the nostalgia lane and reminisce about the sights, sounds and aromas of growing up in a Tharavad home in Kerala.

Arun’s felicity with words matches his familiarity with cooking, serving and eating. He dishes out a delectable smorgasbord of storytelling, the way a filmmaker would. Reading his new book, published by Bloomsbury India, Feast on A Leaf: The Onam Sadhya Cookbook, is like watching a Nat Geo documentary, where each colourful frame and paragraph is carved out to tease, tantalise and finally, remain etched in one’s mind.

He is helped by the fact that the photographer chronicling these images for the book is a master of colour and composition: the formidable Dinesh Khanna.

The centrepiece of the writing, of course, is the timeless tradition of Onam Sadhya and the mythology around its origin.

Serving a traditional Sadhya meal, is a forgotten art, even in Kerala. Kumar pays an ode to the tradition, with a raw authenticity that is going out of fashion. “A simple meal of 10 dishes to begin with, the Sadhya has grown over the years to include 24, 30, or even more items,” he said at the launch of the book at India Habitat Centre. But Kumar celebrates the Tharavad Sadhya of yore, the one he remembers from his childhood. Here’s how he rediscovered the tradition of Onam Sadhya many years later.

“With requests – or rather demands – growing, and the mounting challenge to showcase my prowess in the kitchen, one fine Onam, we opened our doors for more than a dozen of our friends along with a similar number of family members. The cooking was done in a community-like fashion, my sister and sisters-in-law pitching in by cooking and bringing along a few dishes. All the house helps were put to work procuring vegetables and washing and cutting them. My mother oversaw the proceedings; she did not have a high chair like my great-grandmother, but her role was the same. Meanwhile, I was at the stove putting everything together. There was no big kitchen, no massive fires, no large urulis – just a simple four-burner gas stove, a couple of large kadais and a few large vessels. It was late-night and early-morning cooking. Our Tharavad kitchen had come alive again in a new avatar.”

Here is a simple way for vegans to enjoy Onam Sadhya:

While the traditional Onam Sadhya is vegetarian, with a few tweaks it is possible to make it a vegan one too. Curd is used in some dishes like kaalan and cucumber pulissery, and milk in dishes like palada payasam and pal payasam. Ghee is added to parippu, or is used in roasting cashew nuts and raisins for the payasams. If these dishes are excluded, you still have an extensive menu from which you can pick and choose.

The Sadhya Menu

Accompaniments

Kaaya Varuthatha
Chenna Varuthatha
Sarkara Upperi
Manga Kari
Naranga Achar
Pulli Inji
Pappadum

Mains

Avial
Erissery
Olan
Kootu Curry
Sambar
Ulli Theeyal
Rasam

Thorans and Upperis

Beetroot Thoran
Muttakose Thoran
Achinga or Payaru Thoran
Padavalanga Thoran
Kaaya Upperi
Cheera Thoran

Desserts

Moong Dal Payasam
Ada Pradhaman
Chakka or Banana Pradhaman
Unniyappam
Pazham Pori
Steamed Bananas
 Onam special: Filmmaker-restaurateur Arun Kumar dishes out a delectable smorgasbord of storytelling.  Book Review Lifestyle News -Fashion Trends, Beauty Tips, Celebrity Party News, Relationship advice, Travel and Food Tips