There is no single Kerala cuisine, and what appears on a table tells you a great deal about whose table it is. A careful note first: this describes culinary traditions, not individuals. Plenty of Malayalis eat outside the pattern they were born into, and asking about somebody's diet in order to place them socially is exactly the behaviour to avoid. THE COMMON FLOOR ചോറ് cooked rice, specifically the red parboiled മട്ട അരി. Coconut in every form — grated, milk, oil. Curry leaves, mustard seed, green chilli, turmeric, shallots, ginger, tamarind. Banana leaf as a plate. THE FIRST DIVISION IS GEOGRAPHY, NOT RELIGION Coast versus interior, north versus south. The coast eats fish everywhere, in every community. The high ranges eat more tapioca and more meat. And north Kerala, Malabar, has a cuisine distinct enough to have its own name. മലബാർ CUISINE Shaped by a thousand years of Arab trade, with techniques found nowhere else in Kerala. ബിരിയാണി — Malabar biryani is its own thing: short-grained കൈമ rice rather than basmati, fried onions, cashews, raisins, a distinct spicing. Thalassery biryani has a national reputation. പത്തിരി the thin rice flatbread, in many varieties, with meat curry അലിസ a wheat and meat porridge, with relatives across the Arab world മുട്ടമാല and മുട്ടസുർക്ക egg sweets of extraordinary elaboration ഉന്നക്കായ a fried banana pastry stuffed with coconut and nuts ചട്ടിപ്പത്തിരി a layered baked pastry · കല്ലുമ്മക്കായ നിറച്ചത് stuffed mussels SYRIAN CHRISTIAN COOKING Central Travancore, shaped by the community's antiquity, Portuguese contact, and a midland farming tradition. അപ്പവും സ്റ്റ്യൂവും the lace-edged rice pancake with a gentle coconut-milk stew — the classic Christmas and Easter breakfast മീൻ മുളകിട്ടത് fish in a fiery red gravy, cooked in the clay മീൻ ചട്ടി and famously better on the second day കപ്പയും മീൻ കറിയും tapioca with fish curry ഇറച്ചി ഉലർത്തിയത് dry-fried beef with coconut slivers — one of the most-loved dishes in Kerala, eaten well beyond the community താറാവ് റോസ്റ്റ് duck roast, particularly in the Kuttanad backwaters where ducks are farmed THE VEGETARIAN AND EVERYDAY HINDU TABLE The temple and festival tradition is strictly vegetarian — the Onam sadya, with no onion or garlic in the strictest temple cooking. But most Hindu communities in Kerala are not vegetarian and fish is entirely standard. The everyday table is often rice, a പരിപ്പ് or sambar, a thoran, a pickle, a pappadam and fish. തോരൻ · മെഴുക്കുപുരട്ടി · അവിയൽ · ഓലൻ · കാളൻ · എരിശ്ശേരി · പുളിശ്ശേരി · തീയൽ · കിച്ചടി · പച്ചടി — each a distinct technique, not a variation on one. And there are the Konkani and Gowda Saraswat traditions, the Anglo-Indian kitchen, the Kochi Jewish cuisine now almost entirely departed with its community, and the tribal food traditions of the hills, which are almost entirely undocumented in the mainstream. Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.