My love for South indian food part 1

My childhood was spent in the mystic islands in the southern most tip of India named Andaman. By birth i have bengali traits which are connected to east bengal where our predominant staple food was rice, daal, bhaja, sabji and fish or rice or chicken. My father was hard core bangal (Origin from east bengal) and mom had her roots from Bihar (Bengalis settled in Bihar for more than 7 generations). My didu,(grandmother from mothers side) elders used to call her nani was pretty good in making all kind of bihari dish and her typical potol bhaja which i tasted at the age of six still lingers in my taste buds.So we also had mixed food in our house.

Sundays used to be special, usually in all bengali households it used to be luchi with ghugni or chola dal but in our house it used to be idly, chutney and sambhar or some time vadaa from a typical small madrasi cafe "Khattapom" hope i am pronouncing the name correctly. Our servant after some years started preparing it in home but the idlis were never so soft and sour like khattapom ......and from childhood staple lunch for me after school was rice, sambhar and coconut chutney with just green chillies and salt, in our house all things were grinded in granite stone silbata which was typical to any south indian house hold. Now a days i make different kind of chutneys in grinder but don't get the taste of the chutney i used to have as a child.

We always think that south indian food consist of Dosa, idly, vada and utthapam. My husband believed so but now he knows its beyond that...in the next few blogs i shall take you through the journey of south indian food.......