Breakfast is usually puttu (pronounced poo-too – emphasis on the too) and banana. Puttu is available either in wheat or rice varieties and is simply rice/wheat flour mixed with grated coconut and then steamed in a tube.
It's rice puttu in the photo and the yummy red bananas which I get when Joy gets them as opposed to the smaller, yellow bananas which you see in Chinatown in Victoria that are about a third of the size of a garden variety supermarket banana. Both types have way more flavour than our bananas at home. You smush the banana up with your fingers and break off chunks of the puttu and gobble it all up together. It's very tasty but is at its best when fresh, hot and fluffy (which is rarely in my case as it is usually sitting waiting for me when I come back from my walk). I'm not going to eat the pen – I just put that in for scale.
Lunch is usually a very basic thali. Thali is the name for the 'all you can eat meal on a plate' that is signified by the sign 'meals ready' in restaurant/tea shop windows (often in both English and Malayalam). Kari, the Finnish tourist, introduced me to what is about the cheapest thali I've ever eaten.
It isn't fancy, as you can see. It is boiled rice topped with dahl (lentils), two veg curries (ranging from things I recognize like cabbage or green beans to others I don't) and pickle (far left depression in plate). Your plate is refilled as you eat – if you don't like something don't eat it and you won't be given any more. Locals and some brave tourists eat with their fingers but I know from trying it that it is supremely difficult to eat soupy rice without making a terrific mess so I ask for a spoon (and you only have to ask once – this is mostly a local eating place and the few foreign customers stand out in the proprietor's mind). Most days I eat at this shop where the lunch is 15 Rs (about 40 cents).
If I am feeling bored with life and/or food on the beach I'll go to Trivandrum where one of my favourite stops for lunch is Arriya Nivas (which is a hotel with two restaurants). Downstairs is the non-air conditioned dining hall where your thali is served on a banana leaf and is probably cheaper (one day I'll have to check). Upstairs is the fiercely air conditioned hall where what is arguably the city's best thali is served in high style.
You get chapatis and pappadams – which you don't get at the Kovalam tea shop (not surprising for 15 Rs) – as well as lemonade, a wonderful selection of curries, a choice of two types of rice (the 'boiled rice' of the tea shop thali or a more basmati like rice) and a dessert (usually payasam which is a sweet rice and milk pudding with raisins and cashews – it is just below the handle of the spoon). The waiters here are all like Jewish mothers and will encourage you to eat until you feel you will burst. The thali here is 75 Rs (just over $2 Canadian).
Back in Kovalam dinner is usually chicken fry and parothas.
I don't believe the chicken is actually fried – I think it is more likely roasted in a very hot wok type vessel. It is rubbed with spices and is skinless (which I'd never really thought of until now – trust the Malayalis to be healthy ahead of the curve). It is very tasty but occasionally is lip-blisteringly spicy (even Joy will comment). Parothas are a wheat and water bread that are flakier than a chapati – perhaps they have a bit of oil in them but I suspect it is how they are made – they start out as balls of dough about the size of tennis balls which are then turned in to a kind of spiralled circle that develops layers as it cooks. This picture also has a bag of vegetable curry (or it could be chicken curry – everything comes in plastic bags here much to my dismay) and a boiled egg – that may have been Joy's dinner.
Joy gets food for both of us and we eat at the hotel – there are not a lot of restaurants open right now as it is off-season and it is easier for him to just get food for two. I give him money once a week (about 600 Rs - $15 Canadian) and that is plenty for breakfast and dinner, occasional cups of coffee, snacks and water. Soon after I arrived we got the water delivery people to set me up with a dispenser (200 Rs deposit) and now 20 liters of water, which lasts about a week, costs me only $1.50. Hope you've enjoyed this glimpse in to my daily grub.
