MANGALURU: Come monsoon, one may think of piping hot tea or coffee with some fried snacks to enjoy the rain. However, when it is monsoon, the coastal Karnataka region opens up to a whole new food platter, both veg and non-veg delicacies.
Traditional cuisines come back every monsoon. The monsoon brings home bamboo shoots, wild mushrooms and other wild products found close around the home, especially in rural areas. Another monsoon delicacy is a snail or locally called ‘Konge’ in Konkani.
Arpitha Amin, a food blogger, says most famous delicacies are made from jackfruit, which starts from salted raw jackfruit (uppad pachhir in Tulu) dishes, jackfruit gatti made using teak leaves and steamed, jackfruit fritter (garige). There are also other dishes prepared even using jackfruit seeds. Another dish that cannot be missed during monsoon is pathrode, made using colocasia leaves and rice, which is steamed later.
“A lot of them also use thojank (Cassia tora), which is widely available this monsoon everywhere. This plant is less known but has excellent nutrition,” she said.
In Catholic Konkani kitchens, patholi, a steamed sweet rice dumpling stuffed with coconut and jaggery is prepared. This is done using fragrant turmeric leaves. “There are various items prepared out of colocasia leaves and just not pathrode,” says Diana Rodrigues. Some of the monsoon delicacies are prepared on the nativity of Mother Mary, celebrated on September 8.
Laxmi Shenoy says the most loved monsoon delicacies in her community is Kalla lambu or thunder mushroom or gud gud alambe in Konkani. The other popular items are taikile ambado and marvala panna podi, keerla podi.
Arun Ullal, a Kannada lecturer at St Agnes College, said that during olden days there was a limited supply of food items from markets and people had no money to buy them. “They stored food in summer for the monsoon. One of the main food items was jackfruit which was called poor man’s biriyani. They also depended on various green leafy vegetables such as drumstick leaves, tojank, colocasia, and root vegetables,” says Arun.
He said colocasia dishes help maintain body temperature since monsoon changes weather; turmeric leaves are considered to have antiseptic properties.
