Class 44. Kerala food and cooking — the vocabulary that gets you fed, and the two words that will make somebody's day. START WITH THE TWO WORDS When somebody has cooked for you and it is good, do not say നല്ലതാണ്. That is correct and it is flat. Say അടിപൊളി (adipoli) — superb. Or, for the warm understated one that works with anybody's grandmother: കൊള്ളാം. നന്നായിരിക്കുന്നു (kollaam, nannaayirikkunnu). And then the sentence that actually lands: ഇത്രയും രുചിയുള്ള സാമ്പാർ ഞാൻ കഴിച്ചിട്ടില്ല — I have not eaten sambar this tasty before. That കഴിച്ചിട്ടില്ല is the perfect negative from Class 24, doing the most useful job it will ever do. THE BREAKFAST TABLE — one of the world's great breakfasts, and almost nobody outside India knows it പുട്ട് (puttu) steamed cylinders of rice flour and coconut · കടല (kadala) black chickpea curry. പുട്ടും കടലയും is a fixed pair, like fish and chips — say it as one thing. അപ്പം (appam) lacy rice pancake, fermented overnight · ഇടിയപ്പം (idiyappam) string hoppers · പത്തിരി (pathiri) thin rice flatbread, a Malabar speciality · പൊറോട്ട (porotta) the layered flaky bread, Kerala's guilty pleasure and the thing every Malayali abroad misses first · വെള്ളയപ്പം · ഉപ്പുമാവ് · കഞ്ഞി (kanji) rice porridge — what a Malayali eats when unwell, when it is raining, or when homesick. THE ARCHITECTURE THAT MAKES SENSE OF EVERYTHING A Kerala meal is not a dish. It is ചോറ് (rice) in the middle with a ring of small things around it, mixed into the rice one at a time with the right hand. **You are not eating a curry. You are eating rice, four different ways, in sequence.** THE RING അവിയൽ (aviyal) mixed vegetables in coconut and yoghurt · തോരൻ (thoran) stir-fried dry with grated coconut · ഓലൻ (olan) ash gourd in thin coconut milk, the quiet one — and more. Taught by Dr. Reshmi R Nair.