From divine to everyday food

The first thing that strikes me about Pure Vegetarian , Prema Srinivasan’s cookbook, is its size. It might be a tad unwieldy to carry into the kitchen but the book with over 300 pages comes packed with information, musings, anecdotes and recipes.

The recipes are drawn mostly from the traditional Brahmin cooking of Tamil Nadu. One is the milagai podi , which the author and I discuss when we meet. “It has to be grainy, red in colour without being hot … one has to get those characteristics right,” she says. Armed with the book, I made it according to the recipe. And ended up with a podi that had me rushing for a fire extinguisher – I should have asked her exactly what kind of chillies to use. I used the Guntur chilli, but perhaps the local gundu chilli would have been more suitable.

Then I tried out the chow chow pattani kootu , an interesting combination of vegetables. The third recipe I tried out was the rava pongal , which was heavenly, but it required an extra cup of water than prescribed in the recipe for the rava to cook well.

The book goes beyond its recipes, though. Prema says it is a chronicle, especially for her grandchildren. I read with great interest the section on utensils where the author describes and illustrates several kinds. She would have liked to include more vessels but most of them don’t exist now.

The author says artisans would once visit homes in Madurai, where she lived for many years, to make the vessels. A kiln would be set up in the backyard and a few old silver coins supplied by the householder would be added to the metal, imparting beautiful silver streaks to the pots and pans. It’s nuggets like this which make you wish the photos had been better. What joy it would have been to behold glossy pictures of burnished vessels showing off those details! It is in this that the book disappoints. Most of the pictures are reproduced in green – it lends a retro touch sometimes, but it’s not always pleasing. The author hopes to improve that in the second edition. Some recipes miss out on some details – when to add the salt, for instance.

I can’t help but be charmed when Prema, who comes from one of Chennai’s well-known industrialist families – the TVS group — firmly says she did not want the look or the photos of the dishes enhanced in any way. “The tendency is to prepare something and put a few chillies and such on them to make them look pretty in photos. That is not how we really cook or eat,” she says.

The other interesting part of the book is the section on temple prasadams . Ever realised that the Tamil word sadam for cooked rice comes from prasadam ? It has its origins in the practice of offering cooked rice with some ghee to the deity every day.

“All prasadams originated in the households of those who tended to the temples, and they became experts at it because they were made every day and served to the deities,” she explains. The section on prasadams includes recipes for an array of offerings, including those served in temples spanning a wide arc from Kerala to Puri. This section also lists all the prasadams served in some temples — the Chappan Bhog in Puri, for instance — which makes for fascinating reading.

Prema views her book as an effort that connects the various facets of food, from the divine to the everyday. She says her grandfather was a big influence. A lawyer, he was passionate about food, exploring several aspects of it all the time. “He would always strive to know how to make the best coffee, how exactly to roll out the poori, and would pay a lot of attention to procure all the foodstuff for the household."

The author has not stopped at recipes drawn from her community alone, and has included some, and unusual ones at that, from other communities and regions such as Rajapalayam and Udupi. I hadn’t heard of the rice and milk vadai from Kongunad, and am keen to try it out some day. There are some crossover dishes as well, such as pasta uppuma and broccoli ellu kari, and recipes from her travels abroad, such as the Green Papaya Salad and the Green Soup with Yuba Slivers. “Change is there, whether we like it or not, and new vegetables are available. But not everything needs onion or garlic, that is optional and one should know the art of combining them with suitable vegetables,” says Prema. Influenced by Italian cooking, though she is quite open to experimentation, she draws the line at adding onion to puliyodarai (tamarind rice).

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