Sadhya =
Feast/ Banquet
Onam Sadhya
– A feast celebrated in honor of King Mahabali who visits us once a year during
ONAM.
At Sobha Palladian
we celebrated ONAM today, a week later than the actual ONAM date.
The traditional Poo Kolam and Thiruvathira
Kali, was followed by the famous and most awaited
Sadhya!
Sadhya is an elaborate vegetarian feast consisting
of a multi-course meal with 15++ dishes.
Traditionally folks squat on the floor cross-legged (sukhasana) and eat
from a banana leaf on which the servings are made.
Here at SP we sat on our clubhouse steel and ply-wood chairs and metal table covered with white paper. The Banana leaf was placed in front of us.
A 2 sq.ft of green real-estate that was all the cutlery needed for this
elaborate feast – no dinner plates, no quarter plates, no soup bowls / saucers/
side plates/ katoris/ spoons/ forks/ knives. A paper cup each for water and payasams.
Ashtey!!
And you can
hear the great King Mahabali say “ use your God given hands, my son!”
So, you can
well imagine the challenge one has to tackle while eating this multi-course 15++
dish elaborate spread! All piled-on to a less than 2 sq. Ft space. Where do you
start and what is the sequence of eating .
Now compare
that to a gourmet dinner in any fancy restaurant sitting on comfortable soft
padded chairs and enjoying a meal leisurely over 90 minutes!
Sadhya is
very different from a western 5-course meal. The western food is served with a
wide paraphernalia of dishes and exotic cutlery. A lot of attention is given to
presentation, layout and packaging the food in various serving containers and
it is done in a fancy flourish by highly paid waiters and chefs.
Sadhya has
no such pretentions. A wonderful and delicious array of freshly prepared food
served on a banana leaf in a plain and simple no-nonsense manner. No unwanted
stuff. Everything is eaten except the B-leaf. The food speaks for itself. You
do not need marketing or any presentation to support.
Just food,
food and just food! Sit, eat & enjoy madi!
To highlight
the stark contrast between the two, here is a typical gourmet dining scenario
..
And you must
pick up the cutlery that is farthest from the plate first and then move inwards
as the meal progresses
The plate is
not what you eat on. It is kept there to prevent you from doodling on the white
table cloth. And you DO NOT pick up the knife and play sword fighting with the
person sitting in front or the guy next to you.
Soon the
heavy plate is removed. First time folks
might wonder. And those from Madras may
exclaim – idhu enna, Kai – endhi bhavan style aah??(meaning extended-hand
format eat out??)
The soup
arrives. You take a big round spoon, gently dip it and skim a few cms. of the soup
from the top and noiselessly sip. Then nod your head in appreciation and
compliment the cook. The waiter conveys this msg to the chef who gets happy and
ensures that extra personal supervision for all your dishes.
You DO NOT
immediately reach out for the salt shaker and sprinkle a generous layer. It
will insult the chef and the rest of your meal can turn into disaster!
I remember
my younger days when 8 of our family & relatives piled into our small
Maruti 800 and went out to dine.
Soup came,
and all of us reached out for salt and pepper instantly. After vigorous
shakings a layer of white spread on the blood red tomato soup and then, pepper
powder on top. Then some energetic stirring before the concoction was quickly
slurped until the last drop!
If it was
sweet corn or hot and sweet or any other Chinese, then a generous dollop of
soya sauce from the thin tall bottle and a spoon full of the chili sauce as
well.
You do that
in any French restaurant or in a Shanghai 5-Star, and you could be debarred
entry for life!
Then there
is this story of Isaac Newton who would take his potential research candidates
to a nearby restaurant and order soup. If the candidate reaches out for salt
first, he would be rejected. You see, Newton strongly advocated observation and
testing! You must taste your soup first before deciding on salt.
Back to our
gourmet meal.
Starters
next, on a fresh set of plates after the soup bowl is cleared. Accompanied by
small tiny porcelain cups for the dips.
Then poultry
or fish with white sauce and white wine. Again, on new set of plates and we use
the next set of shining fork & knife. Pin a corner of the meat with the
fork on your left hand and carve out a small piece with the knife on the right
and eat. And repeat this process. Once finished, wash it down with wine. You
must rinse your mouth with wine or water every-time you get ready for the next
course. Sort of deep cleaning process to ensure your taste buds are reset (a
biological ctrl/alt/del)
And then
main course and so on. Note: you DO NOT use the spoon throughout the meal. It
is only for the soup at the start and for the dessert when you use the spoon to
scoop out the vanilla ice-cream & the plum pudding and the caramel custard
with jelly on top! Everything else is eaten with a knife and fork. And you DO
NOT use the knife as a shovel to scoop up rice, peas and corn!
And if you
get noodles or spaghetti, then with spoon in your left hand, scoop the noodles
with your fork, place its tips inside the spoon’s curvature and twirl the fork.
The noodles with wrap around the fork and you gently guide it into your mouth.
You DO NOT
plunge the fork into the large generous pile, lift it above your head and eat
your way from the bottom dangling end of the noodle strings!
Back to our Sadhya..
I am sitting
on my chair, banana leaf in front and waiting eagerly for the food train to
come. The wider end of the banana leaf is
on my right-hand side making it
easier to take the side dishes and mix it with rice and eat. Left end is for
less frequently approached items like pickles and chips and pappadams.
The food
trains arrives. A row of 6 servers march
in, clutching food buckets with their left hand and ladle on right they dole
out small helpings on every leaf with practiced precision and accuracy! Each
dish lands perfectly on its designated spot on the B-leaf.
The Banana grid will
have :-
The side dishes >> Top half of the leaf, from right to
left,
The pickles, chips/fries and salt >>Top half left hand corner
Rice and Sambar, Rasam and other gooey fast flowing liquids >> Bottom
half .
Poovam banana, pappadam etc >> Bottom half left.
(where was banana ??)
The sequence of servings :
Salt, pickle, inji curry first at top half left. Then
avial, thoran and other side dishes. Slowly the top half of the leaf is
filled with different side dishes from right to left.
Very soon
B-leaf is thickly populated with Upperi ( Banana Chips) Sharkara Varatti ( jaggery
coated banana chunks), Manga Curry,
Elisheri,
Pulissery, Kaalan, Olan, Pachadi (pineapple
raita) Chenna Mezhkkupuratti, Parripu Curry!
Then comes Choru - white rice for the cautious & prudent
ones and the big bulbous red rice for the regulars and the adventurous ones . Ghee
on top, then dal/parippu then rice again, then,
sambar, next rasam, pulissery, kalan and then payasam. Finally, more rice and morru
(buttermilk)!
The present generation cooks
have improvised these dishes to suit modern times, while retaining the original
taste. These servings are much easier to manage on the B-leaf & eat without
any tension.
I attack the tantalising
spread with vigour. Pappadams, chips from my left hand and everything else with
my right hand, I cleanout out each small mound one by one and making enough
space for the refill round.
WOW!! My taste buds are
on overdrive!
Sweet/ Extreme sweet/ sweet
and sour/ tangy/ sour/ bland/ spicy/ soft/ spongy/ hard/ crisp/ brittle and every
other combo one can think of! What a variety of tastes. I bet most fancy western chefs
would never have dreamed of such flavors or taste and that all pervading aroma
of virgin coconut oil!
I switch off my mental
calorie meter and my cholesterol index monitor and go for those refill rounds
with enthusiasm until I feel my belly bulging!
And finally, the pradaman (?) and kadala payasam
(dal kheer) is served in paper cups. I relish and have a second helping. (forget
those glycaemic index charts.)
Back in the older days, except
for a small variety of dishes that manage to retain their form and shape once
they are placed on the B-leaf, most of the servings were free flowing &
fast moving (literally) items.
I remember my very first
Sadhya meal in a Cochin mess in the 70’s.
There were more than 20
dishes and each serving were huge. And once all the dishes were placed on the
B-leaf they started socializing!
And very soon the well-planned
B-leaf grid becomes a homogeneous well integrated & borderless society of
delicacies.
And the integration took
place within seconds – and in tune with the then famous ‘miley sur mera
tumahara, to sur bane hamara’ background anthem!!
And while I am enjoying
this premix of food, a big ladle of rasam breaches the rice dam and the hot
rasam rushes along the smooth grooves of the B-leaf like hot lava. It quickly flows
over the table edge on to my new white Veshti, my thighs & some other
sensitive parts of the body.
The next few minutes were extremely challenging – me vs fluid dynamics. And you can guess who won.
This time it was great! No such deluge of sambars or rasams or morru and the serves were equally cautious. Not a single spot of sambhar or rasam on my veshti!!
My belly is turgid and the
tastes of inji curry and manga curry still linger in my mouth. I did not take
the DIY paan supari offer.
And I would never miss another
Sadhya anywhere anytime!
Krish..
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