Monday, July 7, 2014

South Indian Spread

I attended a  neighbors’ south indian wedding a week back and was amazed to find buffet system in place along with fire, mantras and flowers.  Having attended some south indian traditional wedding some years back I was totally expecting food to be served on banana leaf.
I was actually looking forward to having a flavored vegetarian mix of sweet, sour and spicy stuff spread on a green canvas. But alas modernization had caught up bid the green leaf a good bye.
My thoughts went to the wedding of my friends sister I had attended years back. When I sat to eat food, a fresh bana leaf was spread infront of me and then within no time the leaf was covered with an array of colours and flavours.  To start with there was some salt, crunchy masala papad and tangy bright red mango pickle from which a curry leaf peeked out . There was cream white payasam at one corner of the leaf flavoured with cardomom and sprinkled with badams and cahsews which peeked out asking me to savour it right then and I gave in.. Slurrrp , and the payasam disappeared of the green canvas
Then there were some crunchy warm vadas one bite and they were super soft on the inside ,  and a yellow rectangle mysore pak also rested amidst this platter . There also lay my favorite kosambari salad on the leaf a blissful mix of cucumber, bengal gram and mustard worked magic on my senses. Some vegetable curries and the baap of the meal tempting bisi bele baath melted in my mouth feeding my soul.
There were more number of items on this banana leaf menu but I don’t remember most of them having had that years back . But at the fag end of the meal some plain rice and buttermilk was served , perfect soothing way to end a spicy   affair my Yummy tummy squealed.
I so want to eat such a south indian spread soon, someone please invite me to your wedding :)

Since these days people arent using banana leaf it would great to see south indina spread served beautifully in borosil ware

This post is an entry for the My Beautiful Food contest organized by Indiblogger in association with Borosil