This weekend was the Onam weekend. In fact I got the hang of Onam only after I came to the Middle East (cos there are more malayalees here than back home in Kerala). We were invited to 2 Onam dinners and the missus cooked one of her own on Friday afternoon.
The Onam sadhya (the feast for the rich and the poor alike) basically is a vegan’s delight, all the lans, the yals, the sherries will make an annual appearance on this day. No clue yet…. the native Malayalam speaker must have figured it out by now…the kallans, ollans , aviyals, poriyals, and the errisherries and pullisherries make their annual appearance.
Well I’ll try & get u the nearest English translation for the non-Malayalee readers of mine.
The Onam sadhya (the feast for the rich and the poor alike) basically is a vegan’s delight, all the lans, the yals, the sherries will make an annual appearance on this day. No clue yet…. the native Malayalam speaker must have figured it out by now…the kallans, ollans , aviyals, poriyals, and the errisherries and pullisherries make their annual appearance.
Well I’ll try & get u the nearest English translation for the non-Malayalee readers of mine.
Errisherrie = Well done mashed yellow pumpkin in thick coconut sauce with a dab of mustard seeds.
Pullisherrie = diluted sour yoghurt discoloured with a lil turmeric and large pieces of white pumpkin / cucumber.
Ollan: - white pumpkin and black eyed bean in white coconut sauce.
Kallan: - Yellow pumpkin curry with a consistency lil more than the ollan
Aviyal: - a general cocktail of all left over veggies which u kind of hated when u were young, but the ones which ur friendly neighbourhood doc advises u to have after 35 …again with some grated coconut.
Poriyal: no cocktail of veggies this time just cabbage or beans with some grated coconut served dry.
Payasam : Vermicilli Milk pudding.
Oh Oh … this grated coconut and the malayalees…
All this with some accompaniments of the likes of the Injee pulli (Sourrrrr ginger), Upperry (banana fries, the Kerala equivalent of French fries) and some Sharkaraverrattti …(Sweetened & hardened banana pieces) ..that I believe was the king of tongue twisters… try saying it once again and I bet ur tongue would be twisted for life.
All this served with some nice Palaghatan Matta (Locally Genetically modified rice which is sold at a premium in the Middle East) on a banana leaf which you end up buying from a Nepali vendor (what an irony, a Malayalee having to negotiate for banana leaves with a Nepali) for a fortune. I guess this is what the HR babes & blokes in this part of the world call experience of working in a multi cultural environment.
However the essence & the joy of Onam lies in cooking up all this at home, by the lady of the house ably supported by man who ends up chopping / sautéing / tasting in-between the 'smallings' (a gud ol keralite slang for the act of drinking a measure which is a lil more than a peg). The men donning a mundu, (though the hemlines of the mundu keep rising depending on the number of 'smalls' one has had) and colourful silk shirts/jubbas (south Indian equivalent of a kurta) and the women in a ‘set’… a half white sari & blouse with zari work on the pallu.
The rich and the poor, the IT and the non IT folks... celebrate Onam with the same fervour.
Pullisherrie = diluted sour yoghurt discoloured with a lil turmeric and large pieces of white pumpkin / cucumber.
Ollan: - white pumpkin and black eyed bean in white coconut sauce.
Kallan: - Yellow pumpkin curry with a consistency lil more than the ollan
Aviyal: - a general cocktail of all left over veggies which u kind of hated when u were young, but the ones which ur friendly neighbourhood doc advises u to have after 35 …again with some grated coconut.
Poriyal: no cocktail of veggies this time just cabbage or beans with some grated coconut served dry.
Payasam : Vermicilli Milk pudding.
Oh Oh … this grated coconut and the malayalees…
All this with some accompaniments of the likes of the Injee pulli (Sourrrrr ginger), Upperry (banana fries, the Kerala equivalent of French fries) and some Sharkaraverrattti …(Sweetened & hardened banana pieces) ..that I believe was the king of tongue twisters… try saying it once again and I bet ur tongue would be twisted for life.
All this served with some nice Palaghatan Matta (Locally Genetically modified rice which is sold at a premium in the Middle East) on a banana leaf which you end up buying from a Nepali vendor (what an irony, a Malayalee having to negotiate for banana leaves with a Nepali) for a fortune. I guess this is what the HR babes & blokes in this part of the world call experience of working in a multi cultural environment.
However the essence & the joy of Onam lies in cooking up all this at home, by the lady of the house ably supported by man who ends up chopping / sautéing / tasting in-between the 'smallings' (a gud ol keralite slang for the act of drinking a measure which is a lil more than a peg). The men donning a mundu, (though the hemlines of the mundu keep rising depending on the number of 'smalls' one has had) and colourful silk shirts/jubbas (south Indian equivalent of a kurta) and the women in a ‘set’… a half white sari & blouse with zari work on the pallu.
The rich and the poor, the IT and the non IT folks... celebrate Onam with the same fervour.
I have managed to upload a couple of pics of Onam in Doha. The Onam sadhya spread, one of the family and finally one of a friend who managed to pose for a photograph (all rights reserved) to represent a global image of a perfect Malayalee on an Onam eve with a ‘small’ in hand.
(Need to inform people at Microsoft to include Onam in the spell check list of MS Word cos it always returns Oman for Onam).
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