Southern Comfort

George’s book brings together about 150 recipes,interspersed with interesting anecdotes and tales of her extended family in Kerala,often reading more like a memoir than a typical cookbook. There are reminiscences about her ferry trip to her paternal grandmother’s house in Kanjirapally,of cooking in the ancestral kitchen or savouring a aama erachi (turtle-meat sauté) and mashed tapioca at a toddy shop. In between recipes of pickles and preserves she talks about the ritual baths a young mother has to take and the diet of mutton broth that she is put on,in the days following childbirth. George,a Mumbai-born Syrian Christian,is now based in Kodaikanal,and works as a landscape designer. Incidentally,the book was released in the US by Hippocrene as The Kerala Kitchen in 2009.

The launch in India also saw a discussion on Syrian culture and cuisine by William Dalrymple,socialite Dilip Cherian,Professor Susan Vishvanathan from the Jawaharlal Nehru University ,former RAW chief Hormis Tharakan and the author. “Suriani food has a distinct style,though it has taken a lot from other cultures of Kerala. We have more of steamed breads like puttu and appam as compared to the Malabar side that has parotta. It has a lot of non vegetarian dishes too. We can also thank the Nair community for many vegetarian dishes that have become a part of Suriani households. So while it is distinct,there are a lot of common flavours,” said the 51-year old author who started writing the book two years ago.

To coincide with the book launch,The Park is hosting a three-day Suriani food festival,which ends today.

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