Kerala Famous Food: A Guide to the Cuisine of the Spice Coast

Ask anyone who has travelled through Kerala what they remember most and, alongside the backwaters and the hill mist, they will almost certainly mention the food. Kerala’s cuisine is often called God’s Own Country on a plate, and it earns the title. This is a coastal, tropical cuisine built on four pillars: coconut in every conceivable form, from the oil it is cooked in to the milk that enriches a curry and the fresh scrapings folded through a stir-fry; rice, the daily staple that anchors every meal; seafood, pulled fresh from the Arabian Sea and the maze of backwaters behind it; and spices, because Kerala is, quite literally, the historic Spice Coast. Pepper was once called black gold here, and cardamom, cloves and cinnamon from these hills drew Arab, Chinese, Roman, Portuguese and Dutch traders to these shores for centuries.

That trading history is baked into the food itself. Kerala’s cuisine was never cooked by one community alone. Hindu households, Syrian Christian families, the Mappila or Moplah Muslims of the Malabar coast, and a small but historically significant Jewish community all developed their own tables, and each absorbed a little of what the traders brought with them. The result shifts in character as you move through the state, unified by curry leaf, mustard seed, tamarind and kokum, and fresh green chilli, but capable of being gentle in one kitchen and properly fiery in the next.

The Sadya: Kerala’s grand feast

If there is one dish that sums up Kerala’s food culture, it is the sadya, the elaborate vegetarian feast traditionally served on a fresh banana leaf. It is the centrepiece of Onam, Kerala’s harvest festival, and it turns up again at weddings and temple festivals. A proper sadya is less a single dish than a small universe of them, arranged around a mound of rice and eaten with the fingers, in a particular order that locals learn almost without thinking.

Among the essentials are sambar, the tangy lentil and vegetable stew, and avial, a jumble of mixed vegetables cooked with coconut and a little yoghurt. Thoran, a dry stir-fry of vegetables with grated coconut, sits alongside olan, a gentle stew of ash gourd and coconut milk, and kaalan, a thicker, sour coconut and yoghurt preparation. Pachadi brings a sweet-sour note, erissery combines pumpkin and lentils with coconut, and injipuli, also known as puli inji, is a sharp ginger and tamarind relish that cuts through the richness of everything else. Pickles and crisp pappadam round out the savoury side, and the meal closes with payasams, the sweet, milky desserts, most famously ada pradhaman, made with jaggery and rice flakes, and palada payasam, a milk-based dessert with soft rice pieces. If you can time a visit around Onam, a sadya is one of the great culinary experiences in South India.

Breakfast, the Kerala way

Kerala’s breakfasts are a cuisine in their own right. Puttu, cylinders of steamed rice flour and grated coconut layered in a special steamer, is a morning classic, usually served with kadala curry, a dark, spiced black chickpea curry, or simply with ripe banana. Appam, a bowl-shaped, lacy pancake made from fermented rice batter with a soft, spongy centre and crisp edges, is another icon, and it is almost always paired with stew, a mild coconut-milk ishtu made with vegetables, chicken or mutton, or with a fragrant egg curry.

Idiyappam, also called string hoppers or noolappam, are delicate steamed rice noodle nests, again served with a curry or stew, and dosas and idlis are just as much a part of the Kerala breakfast table. The pairing of puttu with kadala curry, and appam with stew, are two of the most beloved breakfast combinations in the state.

Seafood and the coast

With the Arabian Sea on one side and a network of backwaters threading through the interior, seafood is central to Kerala cooking. The best-known dish is Kerala fish curry, or meen curry, a red, tangy curry built on coconut, chilli and kokum, known locally as kudampuli, a smoky, sour dried fruit that gives Malabar fish curries their distinctive tang. Karimeen pollichathu, pearl spot fish marinated in spices, wrapped in a banana leaf and grilled, is a backwater classic and one of the dishes most associated with a Kerala houseboat trip.

Chemmeen, or prawns, appear in curries and dry roasts, fish molee is a gentler, coconut-milk based fish stew associated with Syrian Christian kitchens, and fried fish, mussels known as kallummakkaya, and crab all find their way onto Kerala tables depending on the season. The flavours range from the comforting mildness of a molee to the properly fiery heat of a Malabar-style meen curry, so it is worth asking how spicy a dish is if you are not used to chilli.

Malabar and Mappila cuisine

The northern Malabar coast, shaped heavily by Arab trade and the Mappila or Moplah Muslim community, has a distinct culinary identity within Kerala. Its most famous export is the Malabar biryani, often called Thalassery biryani, made with the small, fragrant kaima or jeerakasala rice rather than the long-grain basmati used in Hyderabadi biryani, and layered with meat, fried onions and a generous hand of ghee and spice. It is a different animal from other Indian biryanis, lighter in grain but every bit as aromatic.

Mappila cuisine has its own snack culture too, built around pathiri, a thin rice flatbread, rich chicken and meat curries, and dishes prepared for Ramadan and iftar gatherings. Unnakaya and pazham nirachathu, both variations on stuffed banana, and chatti pathiri, a layered, almost lasagne-like sweet pastry, show the Arab-influenced, ghee-rich side of the region’s cooking. Kozhikode, also known as Calicut, is famous for Kozhikode halwa, a chewy, glossy sweet sold in shopfronts across the old town, and the city is worth visiting for its food alone.

Syrian Christian cuisine

Central Kerala, particularly around Kottayam, is home to the Syrian Christian or Nasrani community, whose cuisine leans more heavily on meat than many other Kerala kitchens, a legacy that also carries traces of Portuguese influence from the colonial era. Beef ularthiyathu, a dry beef fry cooked slowly with coconut slivers and a dark blend of spices, is something of a Kerala icon and a dish many visitors remember long after they leave. Duck roast, especially associated with the Kuttanad backwater region, is another highlight, along with meen molee and, of course, appam with stew.

Pork also features in Syrian Christian households, cooked in ways that echo the same slow-roasted, coconut-and-spice style as the beef dishes. Beef and pork are relatively easy to find in Christian-majority areas of central Kerala, while much of the food elsewhere in the state is vegetarian or built around seafood instead.

Snacks and tea shop culture

No account of Kerala food is complete without its snacks, and no visit is complete without a stop at a roadside tea shop, or chaya kada. Banana chips, thin slices of the local Nendran banana fried in coconut oil until crisp, are perhaps Kerala’s best-known export snack, sold everywhere from train platforms to airport shops. Sharkara varatti, banana chips coated in a jaggery glaze, offer a sweeter version of the same idea, and pazhampori, ripe banana fritters, are a tea-time favourite everywhere in the state.

• Parippu vada and uzhunnu vada, savoury lentil fritters, the classic accompaniment to a glass of tea
• Unniyappam, small sweet rice and jaggery fritters, popular around festival time
• Achappam and rose cookies, delicate fried biscuits, and kuzhalappam, a rolled rice snack
• Ela ada, rice dumplings steamed in a banana leaf with a coconut and jaggery filling

The tea shops themselves are worth lingering in. They are unpretentious, cheap and often the best place to try several small snacks at once alongside a properly strong glass of chaya.

Drinks and toddy shops

Kerala’s tea, or chaya, is strong and usually well sweetened, and in the Malabar region it takes the form of Sulaimani, a black tea infused with lime and spices, served without milk. Tender coconut water, drunk straight from the shell, is everywhere, and sambharam, a spiced, chilled buttermilk, is a traditional cooling drink. Kerala also grows excellent coffee in its hill regions, and Nannari sarbath, a syrup made from a native root, is another refreshing local drink worth trying.

Then there is toddy, or kallu, the fermented sap of the coconut or palm tree, served in dedicated toddy shops known as shaap or kallu shaap. These are proper local institutions, usually simple and unpolished, serving spicy, meaty dishes designed to go with the drink, and a visit to one is often cited by travellers as one of the most authentic food experiences Kerala offers. The food here tends towards the fiery end of the spectrum, so pace yourself accordingly.

Sweets and tropical produce

Kerala’s sweet tooth shows most clearly in its payasams, the milky, spiced desserts served at the end of a sadya or on festival days, from the jaggery-rich ada pradhaman to the delicate palada payasam and the simpler parippu payasam made with lentils. Kozhikode halwa, mentioned earlier, deserves a second mention here as one of Kerala’s genuinely famous sweets, chewy and glass-like and sold by the kilogram in Malabar shopfronts.

Behind all of this sits the sheer abundance of Kerala’s tropical produce. Coconut is everywhere, obviously, but jackfruit, or chakka, is nearly as important, appearing in curries, chips and desserts depending on how ripe it is. Bananas and plantains come in a striking number of varieties, each suited to a different dish, and tapioca, known locally as kappa, is a beloved staple, most famously paired with a fiery fish curry in the combination simply called kappa and meen curry. If you enjoy cooking, the hill towns are also a good place to pick up whole black pepper, cardamom and cloves, the very spices that first put this coast on the map.

Where and how to eat in Kerala

The single best way to experience Kerala’s food is to eat it in context. Time a trip around Onam, in September or October, and you have a genuine chance of finding a full sadya. Any local “meals” restaurant will also serve a simplified version of the same spread on a banana leaf at lunchtime, and it is one of the best value meals you will find anywhere in India. A toddy shop is worth seeking out for an authentic, unfussy evening of spicy, meaty food, and if biryani, Mappila snacks and Kozhikode halwa are the goal, head north to Kozhikode and Thalassery, the heartland of Malabar cooking.

Kochi, the historic port city, is arguably the single best place to eat across the whole state, simply because it is where every one of Kerala’s food cultures meet. Jewish, Syrian Christian, Muslim and Hindu culinary traditions have all left their mark here, alongside a strong seafood scene and a growing number of good cafes. For karimeen and other backwater specialities, a night on a houseboat is hard to beat, and do not overlook the humble tea shop, which for the price of a snack and a glass of chaya will often give you the truest taste of everyday Kerala. Keep in mind that the food changes character by region and community: expect mild, coconut-based dishes in many Hindu households, proper heat in Malabar fish curries and toddy shop fare, and beef and pork mainly in Syrian Christian areas, so it pays to eat your way around rather than judge the whole cuisine from a single meal.

The taste of the spice coast

Kerala’s food is, in the end, the taste of the spice coast itself. It is coconut and curry leaf in a hot pan, the smoky sourness of kudampuli working through a red fish curry, a lacy appam soaking up a bowl of coconut stew, a banana-leaf sadya laid out with a dozen small dishes at once, and a plate of Malabar biryani perfumed with the very spices that once drew ships from across the world to these shores. It is a tropical, layered and deeply hospitable cuisine, shaped by centuries of trade and by several communities cooking side by side, and it is reason enough on its own to spend time in God’s Own Country.