Food Friday | The best-kept secrets of Kodava cuisine

“Pandicurry please!”

The allure of the tangy-spicy curry keeps calling me back to Coorg, every time. Of course, I am a lover of coffee too but if I were baring my heart to you, I would tell you that pork takes precedence every time I visit the Scotland of South India. No other style of pork has made such an impact, not even the sorpotel!

Let's agree that the iconic Pandicurry is the most emblematic and popular food people identify from Coorg. But the kadi (good food) and kudi (liquor) of the Kodava region in Karnataka are as wide and wild as they could get. From wild mangoes and mushrooms to tender bamboo shoots, the food here is full of organic ingredients that establish its supremacy over other cuisines emerging from the state.

In this context, it's important to mention that Coorg was in fact a state itself, landlocked and rich with biodiversity that attracted foreign attention almost immediately when the British came to India. Ruled as a kingdom established originally by the Nayakas, the state was self-sufficient and housed a clan-based community of warrior tribes. It was the hunted boar, that actually led to the pandi curry’s foundation.

For centuries Coorg was quite inaccessible, a landlocked region. It explains the heavy reliance on locally sourced ingredients. On a recent visit to the Evolve Back Coorg which sits pretty in a 300-acre coffee plantation and traces the traditions of the valley efficiently, I found peppercorn growing carelessly creeping around jackfruit, silver oak and mango trees among the robusta coffee the estate produces.

For the uninitiated, Coorg is also the rice bowl of Karnataka, it grows in abundance here thanks to plenty of rains and rich soil composition. Upon finding The variety of rice items alone is quite humbling at The Granary, the main restaurant at Evolve Back so I had to turn to a specialist who could explain better. Sudhansu Sekhar Jena, the senior sous chef helps me out - “Kadambuttu, Thaliya Puttu, Paaputtu, Noolputtu, Koovale Puttu and various seasonal pickles are signature dishes of Coorg cuisine, just to name a few,” he explained.

While small dumplings of steamed broken rice make the Kadambuttu, Noolputtu is a fine lump of pressed rice noodles and what makes Paputtu stand out is the addition of coconut milk and a dash of shredded coconut which is steamed together with rice. With this newly acquired knowledge, I settled for lunch with paputtus and a delicious koli curry (chicken curry).

Sudhansu Sekhar Jena , Senior Sous Chef - F&B Production, Evolve Back Coorg, shares the recipe of Paputtu and also tells the detials of the dish.

Monsoon brings even more joy for the tribe that used to be reliant on hunting-gathering in forms of mud crabs and fresh fish from the opulent rivers running through the forests of Kodagu. Mahseer, rohu, tilapia, katla, giant gourami are some of the fish which can be caught in river Cauvery, India’s fourth largest and the lifeline to this side of the peninsula.

Anjali Ganapathy, a Chef who calls herself an armchair ethnographist, has been tracing and presenting Coorg cuisine at her estate home, after running a successful catering service in Bengaluru for years. I reach out to her for more information and trivia.

“Traditionally we were hunters”, Ganapathy affirms.

“Our farms and forests had no boundaries and weaponry such as firearms and machetes were a part of every household. They were used for protection as well as hunting to provide for the family,” she tells me. It was the norm.

Meat from wild boar, venison and wild fowl came from the forests according to Ganapathy and though fast disappearing, mud crabs, river and paddy-field fish can still be found in a Coorg home kitchen, she informs. Bush meat has been replaced by commercially available chicken, mutton and pork.

I wanted to taste the Kaad Maange curry (wild mango curry) but Sudhansu informed me that the season just got over. Ruefully I decide that it's never too late to plan another visit to Coorg. So I head to the Sidapur Coffee & Culture Museum to sharpen my coffee knowledge instead, since it is housed within the property. Welcoming a group of excited guests, Jenny starts her session with a smile and a question - “How many of you know the difference between Arabica and Robusta?”

Assisted by a very skilled Barista, we embark on an aromatic journey of coffee produced in the estate, presented in a variety of concoctions including the famous Moroccan Nous-Nous (half and half) edition and Vietnamese Cold Coffee (with condensed milk to sweeten it). The beauty of a great coffee is not the design you see, but the firmness of the froth that doesn't allow a spoon to dip, Jenny informed us with a demonstration. After six shots of coffee, I am convinced that I shall never have instant coffee again.

I still don't know what makes the curry of the pandicurry, so I head back to Peppercorn, the specialty restaurant by the lake at Evolve Back to sit down with the sous chef. What follows is a deep dive into the organic ingredients that make Kodava cuisine a secret.

A unique souring ingredient, Kachampuli, (Coorg’s version of a Balsamic/black vinegar) is extracted from the ripe fruits of the Garcinia Gummi Gutta tree, commonly known as Brindle berry or Malabar tamarind. The fruits are usually placed in baskets over large vessels to allow the juice to gently drip down (over a few days) as the fruit gradually becomes pulp through natural fermentation. The extract is then reduced over a woodfire to make the vinegar like black smokey sour liquid.

“It is typically used towards the end of the cooking process in many Kodava dishes (including the Pandi curry) and accentuates the flavours of the meat and the colour of the dish,” shared Jena.

Enriched with this information, I wander into the reading room where the resort serves free coffee all day long. Looking over the rice fields being pattered with relentless rain, my mind wanders to the visual of an Ainmane, the Kodava-style clan house. I can almost smell the Baale Nuruk (a fritter made with rice flour and ripe bananas) in the kitchen in my virtual visit when my thoughts are interrupted by a gentleman dressed in khakis. I take him to be a naturalist at the resort. Sweetly he offers a glass of ‘Coffee Wine’, a dark amber-coloured liquid kept at the coffee counter. Intrigued, I take a sip and instantly, a wave of delight hits my throat. It smells of coffee and leaves the aftertaste of pepper, a unique combination indeed.

“Pigout has helped me achieve a deeper understanding of how the cuisine took shape, its evolution and a study of how to preserve and as well as prepare for what could possibly be the future holds for a micro cuisine, that is rooted in a wild landscape”, shared Ganapathy.

She has been running Pigout Coorg Kitchen from her family home (also an AirBnB) since the pandemic. “Your best bet at trying fresh ingredients with homegrown produce would be in someone’s home,” she chimes.

On my last day in Coorg, walking around the pool villa with a glass of Chukku Kaapi (also known as Bella Kaapi - coffee made with jaggery and ginger extract) I made a vow to come back to this wild land of delectable fares, soon enough.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.