Pothichoru: Rice, curry and nostalgia packed in a banana leaf
Unwrapping the Keralite meal parcel and its memories of bus and train journeys
It was Kerala of the 1970s. There were no mobile phones and travelling 40km meant changing three buses. Parents who sent their kids alone on this journey entrusted their safe passage to strangers.
All of seven, Sara Jacob Nair frequently undertook this journey from her parents’ home in Kochi to her grandparents’ home in Pampakuda, a quiet village dotted with rolling hills and rubber plantations. Her companion on this solitary, three-hour voyage was pothichoru, a rice parcel packed in a vatiya ella (slightly smoked banana leaf) by her mother. “Back then, you would hardly find anything to eat on the way, so lunch was packed from home,” says Nair. While waiting for the next bus at the first stopover, she would walk into a shop near the bus terminal, sit in a corner, unwrap the parcel and indulge in its effervescent aromas and flavours.
Along with rice, her pothichoru had thoran (a vegetable stir-fried with coconut), buttermilk-based moru curry, chammanthi (chutney), an omelette and sometimes, a chicken or beef dish, depending on what her mother cooked that day. The parcel would be packed tightly, in a way that all the items banded together around the citadel of rice to resemble a single dish. Yet, each marked its territory firmly on the plump grains, mingling only when the young girl mixed the morsels with her fingers and sought comfort in the hearty lunch.
“The aroma of banana leaf would also seep into the meal and enhance its flavours. That’s the beauty of pothichoru,” says Nair, who co-helms Nair On Fire, a delivery kitchen offering Keralite food in Mumbai.
In Pampakuda, every evening, Nair’s grandmother would also place little rice parcels, along with dried coconut leaves, matchboxes and kerosene, outside their courtyard. “Since there were no streetlights, locals could light up the leaves and use them as torches when crossing our village to the next. They could also pick up pothichoru and eat along the way,” she says.
The modest rice parcel packed in a banana leaf is reminiscent of simpler times, evoking memories of unwrapping it on a school bench or relishing its flavours on long-distance bus and train journeys.
Nair On Fire menu features an ode to these childhood memories in the form of a pothichoru-style biryani. It’s mixed by hand and packed in a banana leaf for private orders.
Meal on the go
Long before lunch boxes and Tupperware containers arrived on the scene, the banana leaf — intrinsic to Kerala’s food culture, appearing at Onam sadya and used to steam dishes such as ada (rice pancakes) — was the main carrier of food for Keralites.
The pothichoru was also a way of sustenance for Kerala’s working class.
Till the late 1990s, only four percent of the state’s population lived in big cities. “Most would commute from villages to cities for work daily. They would either pick up a pothichoru from thatukadas [small eateries] en route or carry one from home to have during daily commute or as working lunch,” says Bengaluru-based home chef, Rati Dhananjayan, who traces her family roots to Kerala. “It was the most convenient way of having a meal because every home had a banana tree, and you could just throw the leaf in a bin.”
A typical pothichoru comprises the boiled matta rice, a couple of sides such as thoran and mezhukkupuratti (a vegetable stir-fried with spices), a plain or vegetable-laced moru curry, pickle and chammanthi. Omelette often makes an appearance and sometimes, fish fry too.
This humble parcel reflects regional and resource diversity too. For instance, non-vegetarian pothichoru is more prominent in Malabar Muslim and Syrian Christian homes and the use of fresh or dried fish depends on the region. At most railway stations in Kerala, one usually finds vendors hawking three types of pothichoru — vegetarian, non-vegetarian and egg. Nair, who picks up a parcel from Palakkad every time she takes the train from Kochi to Coimbatore, says, “You never know the kind of moru curry, thoran or chutney that you’ll find. So, every pothichoru tastes different and I enjoy that surprise element.”
For Dhananjayan, the pothichoru is encased with her mother-in-law’s love and warmth. Every time she visits her in-laws’ place in Kannur, a rice parcel is packed for her return journey to Bengaluru. “I board the train by 6 pm and at dinnertime, when I open the pothichoru, the food is still fresh and retains its aromas,” she says. “It’s like carrying a piece of home back with me.”
Pack it like a pro
Ubiquitous across Kerala, the process of packing a pothichoru begins by selecting a banana leaf that is wide enough to hold the meal. It is smoked lightly on stove flame for a few seconds to “make it pliable, else it will tear,” informs Dhananjayan. Having opened a delivery kitchen during the lockdown, she delivers homemade meals as pothichoru and also uses the plantain leaf to pack Malabari prawn biryani for takeaways. The leaves are sourced from a vendor in Bengaluru, who brings them from Kerala.
The rice is placed in the centre. “The other dishes are placed along its sides rather than just being dumped on it. My mother would place fish on a separate piece of banana leaf in the parcel so that its smell wouldn’t get into the rice,” says Nair. Once the meal is assembled, the leaf is neatly folded from all sides to form a square parcel and tied.
Earlier, strips of banana fibre were used as threads to tie the pothichoru. “I’ve never had an instance of spillage,” says Nair.
Often, a piece of newspaper is wrapped around for an extra layer of covering.
“My grandmother insisted that you should assemble the pothichoru while the food is hot and then, let it rest for five-six hours for the leaf’s aroma to get infused in the meal,” she adds.
A sustainable taste of Kerala
After making its way on the menus of hotels and restaurants in Kerala over the last decade, the banana leaf parcel is now finding takers beyond the state too.
Like Dhananjayan, the lockdown has spurred several migrant Keralite home chefs in Chennai and Mumbai (chef Marina Balakrishnan’s Oottupura is delivering pothichoru) to introduce urban palates to the tastes of their childhood as a way to preserve the past.
An endeavour in this direction is Thrissur-born Aisha Rizwan Malik’s cloud kitchen, Ummachi’s Pothichoru, launched in Chennai in mid-June. “While growing up, my grandmother [Nazeema Majeed aka Ummachi] would pack pothichoru for me to take to school or for train journeys. I preferred it because lunchboxes would be cumbersome to carry. The pothichoru is really close to my heart but few in Chennai are aware of the concept and so, I wanted them to experience it,” she says.
The pothichoru is available on pre-order basis in vegetarian, chicken, beef and seafood options. Each meal contains 10–12 items, including thakkali kuzhambu (tomato-onion sauté), vazhudhananga (brinjal) curry, prawns curry and karuveppilai chicken, a dry fry flecked with black pepper and curry leaf. A couple of gravies are packed in separate containers to avoid spillage.
The spice mixes are sourced from her ummachi in Kerala. The ancestral recipes trace back to Malik’s great-grandmother Ayesha Mohammedunni who started a hole-in-the-wall eatery called Rahmaniya in Chavakkad, Thrissur in the 1940s. Run by the family till date, its bestsellers remain the pothichoru and beef-porotta, which get sold out “within three hours”.
With home chefs also seeking out ways to reduce waste and curb their plastic footprint, the banana leaf is being sought out for being sustainable packaging. “The leaf’s antioxidant and antibacterial properties kill the germs and that helps at a time when everyone is worried about hygiene,” says Malik, who plans to introduce containers made of banana fibre pulp later this year.
Long-distance train journeys may be a distant dream due to COVID-19 but even in this scenario, indulging in a meal wrapped in banana leaf at home has the power to evoke memories, offer refuge and a moment of calm. As Balakrishnan mentions here, “To me, pothichoru still stands as the most relishing way to eat a meal.”
For that alone, it deserves a salute.
