Revisiting the life of K.T. Achaya, scientist, historian and the man who first showed us the world on our platter
The idli. At its best, an airy, fragrant moon that melts in the mouth. Always, the no-frill fast food that, after filter coffee and Rajnikant, could count as south India’s best gift to the country. So imagine my surprise when a certain K. Thammu Achaya dug up 10th century treatises and told the world, gently and without fuss as was his wont, that while the dosa and the vada was as indigenous as the veshti and the Udipi chain, the humble idli had a distinct foreign gene.

The first mentions of iddalige in Kannada literature occur around 920 AD, said Achaya, and that refers to a dish made only of urad dal, which was neither fermented, nor steamed to fluffiness. How then did the modern idli evolve? Hindu kings from Indonesia, a country where fermenting is quite common, often came to India between the 8th and the 12th centuries, looking for brides. The cooks with them, suggested Achaya, brought the technique that changed the character of this breakfast delight.

Food travels. And the idli’s was just one of the many journeys that Achaya charted in two of his main works— Indian Food: A Historical Companion (1994) and a later, more accessible form, The Dictionary of Indian Food (published in 1998, four years before his death). If you browse through works of food writers today, his is a name that often crops up. And with good reason.

... contd.