A typical Kerala feast, referred to as sadya, is spread out temptingly on a clean green banana leaf. And the food is to be eaten with the fingers. Even the dessert, payasam, that tastes like rice pudding, is served on the leafy plate.The culinary efforts of the different communities of Kerala come out in distinctly different dishes of great variety. While Hindus specialise in delicious vegetarian food such as sambar, rasam, olan, kaalan, pachadi, kichadi, aviyal, thoran and so on.

Indian food is often flavored with the non-scalding spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves garlic, cumin, coriander and turmeric. Spices are used in India to tone up the system the way wines aid the digestion of Western Cuisine.
As for the Cuisine of Kerala, it is midly flavored, gently cooked and has a certain genteel delicacy on the stomach. An example is the rich biriyanis of the northern parts of Kerala. The Malabar Biriyanis.

Pulaos, pilaffs and biriyanis are meats spices and onions slowly steam cooked in boiled rice. Malabar biriyani was brought across the Indian Ocean by Arab Seafarers. It should be eaten hot with crispy, crunchy pappads.

POOTU:
A favourite breakfast dish is Pootu. Rice flour dough is lagered with gated coconut and steamed in hollow bamboo cylinder. It is eaten sprinkled with sugar or with mashed bananas or with a spicy curry made of channa or chic peas.

IDDLI & DOSA:
Iddlis or fluffy white steamed cakes and dosas which are thin golden pancakes are popular in Kerala. They are made up of yeasty rice and lentil batter. They are not strictly Malayali Cuisine. They came across from the vegetarian kitchens next door in the State of Tamil Nadu.

Kerala does have its own well developed vegetarian cuisine. If you visit the State during post harvest Onam season lunch with thoran or kaalan or pachadi or olen.

Thorans are gravy-less dishes of finely chopped boiled vegetables and possibly meet and sea food. The mustard seed used in thorans gives them a pleasantly assertive flavour, while the lightly fried grated coconut adds the church.

Avial, on the other hand, is mixed vegetable gravy dish thickened with coconut and yoghurt. Drumsticks, jack fruit seeds and slices of mango are often used.

Olen is also a very gravy dish made of ash gourd and drum beans where the predominant flavor is that of coconut milk. It is a fairly thick liquid squeezed out from the white flesh of a fresh coconut.

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