Kerala Specials

Twenty-four dishes on a banana leaf — choru, parippu with ghee, sambar, avial, thoran and payasam.

The leaf's sweet-sour-hot relish of ginger and tamarind, cooked down with jaggery and chilli.

Nendran banana wafers fried in pure coconut oil, salted and audibly crisp.

Mixed vegetables in ground coconut, cumin and green chilli, soured with curd and finished in coconut oil.

Rice ada slow-cooked in jaggery and thick coconut milk with ghee-fried coconut bits and cashews.

Milk simmered for hours with rice ada till pink and creamy — the queen of Onam payasams.