What does a perfect Malabari dish look like ?
KEY CONCEPTS
What does a perfect Malabari dish look like ?
How much Kozhikodan is a Kozhikodan special dish ?
Historical and cultural influences on food through examples of Mapila dishes and Nasrani dishes
Comparison to the neighboring states
Geographical influences
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To assimilate knowledge on Malabari dishes
2. To be able to list down major ingredients of most of the dishes so as to identify the staple food of Kerala
3. On a world map with a timeline, the learner should be able to identify Kerala’s historic and cultural connections. They must then be able to apply this knowledge to understand why such connections occurred and how such connections impacted the cuisine
4. To recall and apply their learning from the previous chapter on food and to be able to identify reasons for similarity in cuisines in coastal regions like Bengal and Kerala
CLASSROOM INSTRUCTIONS
Pre-class assignment
Students should bring one dish which is special to their home. They should discuss amidst themselves to avoid an overlap. Teacher should enable this prearranged food list to avoid overlap between dishes. Student can write a brief ( maximum 100 words ) note on the ingredients of the dish, the specialty of the dish, stories ( family stories ) about the dish and what makes it unique and special to their home and home town. Collect the assignments. Let students exchange the dishes
Introductory video | 3m
The video — Salt and Pepper, movie, title song. Use the video to start a conversation on the variety of special traditional dishes that exist in Kerala. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLdmU6Ji6xA
Activity | 3 min
Make the students list down some common food preparations. Make the students list down their ingredients. Then classify them under cereals, vegetables & fruits, meat, fish on a chart paper for the entire class. Use this list to establish how the staple diet constitutes rice, fish , spices & coconut. Do this on a chart and save the chart for the next class.
Lecture | 8 min
INTRODUCTION TO KERALA FOOD-Key points are about the staple diet, the major ingredients and how it differs from other Indian states in brief. Then talk about how it differs from district to district. Region to region and finally community to community within a region. Refer to the video when you speak.
Question & activity | 2 m
1. How much Kozhikodan is a Kozhikodan special dish ? Pose this question.
2. Ask one student, (chose the one who has written a note on any of the dishes mentioned in the Lesson material to talk about his/her note on the dish)
Introduce conflict
Next, the teacher can either show the real Arabian variation of the dish or show pictures of it to introduce the idea to the students that several historic and cultural (foreign and other Indian states) influences on food
Lecture | 10 min
Explain why this happened through stories on Calicut being a trading port, stories of invasions and migrations.
Question & writing assignment | 5m
Apart from the international influences on the cuisine, we can find a lot of similarities in the cuisine with the neighboring states. Can you list out a few examples ? Can you guess why they must have happened ?
Signal : Neighboring states.
Assess the knowledge level of your student through — the student being able to name the dishes.
Assess the application level of the student by them being to apply what they learned in the previous chapter on food production. Collect the answers since this also forms a preliminary knowledge survey for the next lesson
Additional references
http://food.ndtv.com/food-drinks/mappila-cuisine-a-delicious-mix-of-kerala-and-arab-food-culture-769812
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_Kerala- historical and cultural influences
INTERESTING READ FOR STUDENTS
A french product called Malabar chewing gum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malabar_%28chewing_gum%29
