The Onam feast — every dish handed to you in a single sitting, eaten right to left in strict order. A meal that takes a lifetime to forget.
Twenty-odd items served in a fixed order on a banana leaf, eaten with the right hand, the leaf laid with its tip to your left. Every pickle and thoran has a position, and the position is part of the dish.
It finishes with payasam poured onto the same leaf. Onam is when every household makes one, but the ordering and the etiquette are best learned from someone who grew up with it rather than from a menu.
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A river-facing Kerala manor in Thrissur, the host's mother in the kitchen.
