Last weekend I got to attend a wedding, no no, two weddings, and they were both in different towns. But there was something common to the two- both were Malayali traditional weddings & both brides were based in Bangalore… First up was a Gujju guy friend marrying a Malayali girl from Bangalore, the wedding was at a beautiful venue in Bangalore, outdoor, and we had a blast… The second one was Malayali guy friend tying the knot with a Malayali girl from Bangalore, in Alleppey [Alappuzha] at a temple..
The best thing about Malayali weddings is that they are so simple, sweet and short, you don’t have to sit for hours watching the couple go through customs or rituals… Infact, if you blink hard, you just might miss the main wedding..
At both weddings, within minutes after the main ceremony, Lunch was announced and we made a beeline to grab it while it was hot.
The wedding venue and stage…
In Bangalore, there were 2 kinds of rice- the regular white raw rice and the red unpolished rice [which is what I chose], 2 paapadams [ one small, one large], the veggies and dals used across the dishes were all quite different and damn tasty.. Oh and we had two kinds of payasams- the cooked down rice payasam with sugar and a similar one with jaggery and some coconut. Slurpalicious…
The dish that stood out at this wedding was the Pineapple pachadi- it was OHMYGOD delicious.. had coconut, pound mustard seeds and what not… Who cares, it was delicious…. You will see a little bit left on the banana leaf, top right, near where the beetroot raita was [I had licked it clean].. Infact, had forgotten to click a picture and dove right in, before I noticed a friend clicking a shot of her leaf… 🙂
Following the meal was Paan & a hot cup of coffee as well. Thanks to the gorgeous weather, we sat around yapping for hours after lunch, took photo with the newly married couple and lazed till it was time for me to scoot to the station to catch my train to Alleppey…
The wedding stage at the temple
At Alleppey, once the wedding was over, we made our way around the main temple, to see a large hall that was covered in Shamiana, and found two empty spots. The banana leaf was laid out and food began arriving, one by one.. First up was the herbal warm water, followed by the banana before the main food and sides arrived. Here we had just white boiled rice, and the sides were quite different from what I had at Bangalore.. The flavours, the texture, and ingredients were also different. but each dish was yumm, and I cleaned everything but the banana & salt from the leaf.
The one dish that stood out at this wedding was the Morkozhambu [ mor koottan, mor kari, puliserry as many have called it since then.. I had actually posted on twitter asking for the recipe and i got a zillion responses].. It was basically watered down buttermilk with tempering, and had the strong delicious garlic flavour… Thanks to the friend who was sitting beside me, I tried this dish… The two payasams here were hot hot hot and out of the world- the cooked down milk & rice based payasam was low on sweet while the Ada pradaman was sweet & yumm.. We polished them off and then went over to take a photo with the newly weds before heading out back to where we stayed…
Wish the couples a super duper journey ahead together.. and hopefully will get invited to their home for some Mallu food.. ;o)
