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NOW IT IS THE TURN OF `ONASADHYA’…
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NOW IT IS THE TURN OF `ONASADHYA’…

Eating is Fun / Eating is Yuck! - A variety food column, Life & Living, Sep 06- Sep 12, 2025 September 5, 2025 , by

INDIA is such a glorious place for doing pet puja and Kerala’s traditional Onam celebration banana leaf meal is making a splash in so many uppercrust and not-so-uppercrust places, wherever there is a Malayali community. Since I’m all for returning to our time-tested freshly made recipes of old I cannot but be fascinated by what has become really annual treasures of a much loved meal (also recounting a story of divine beings who in Hindu mythology are so human and revered as much as feared)…so first the story which is never recounted nowadays or so I think.
In Kerala come is the time the native people remember the legend of the Asura King Mahabali of yore when even ordinary working folk lived without need or want. Something like that and all courtesy a benign ruler, King Mahabali. All were happy, living in harmony, so much so that the king got drunk by the thought of what a good king he was and then naturally the gods kingdom got jealous and envious of him….they said let us teach this king a lesson, prick his ego somewhat. Lord Vishnu in the form of a dwarf avatar Vamana came and buttered up King Mahabali, appealed to him for just three steps of land…the three steps covered his entire kingdom! With the last step Lord Vishnu put his foot on the king’s head and so King Mahabali was banished into the netherland. However, the people loved their king so much that finally they were granted the boon of King Mahabali’s return to God’s Own Land as a homecoming over the celebration of Onam in Kerala.
So during the festival of Onam you are reminded of what happens to too arrogant and prosperous a ruler! You may not take on the pantheon of gods at least, be humble, have no ego showing off and making life miserable for anyone no matter how lowly or in high places, all that.
But this is to say the cuisine is a many splendored vegetarian feast featuring a host of recipes worth bringing back in our kitchens. Most traditional recipes are what I call functional recipes, simple and nutritious and here the Onasadya or banana leaf feast features something like 26 recipes to savor and some things I have a very soft corner for…everything has to be served on a fresh green banana leaf in a certain order. Sadya or oonu is purely a meal of Kerala origin and most Malayalis get nostalgic over it and serve it at marriages and special occasions too apart from during the Onam festival and so “onasadhya.”
The 26 items are served one by one with great discipline and the names of the items alone make the mouth water, mine waters at the thought of tasting say the ginger chutney “injipuli” which is so memorable! There’ll be the parboiled rice, rasam, sambar (redolent of baby onions or brinjals or ladies finger), the medley of veggies called “avail,” the “erissery, pulissery, moru curry” and the pickles of lemon and mango, the rice pappadum, the nuggets of freshly made thin banana wafers fried in coconut oil, the “sharkara upperi” and the sweet something of “payasam” – two kinds – also “ada pradhaman” and yes, a Kerala meal will also be accompanied with the delicious sweet “nendran” banana (also known as “elchi” banana). I don’t think anywhere else in the world you will find the variety and sweetness of bananas as in Kerala…Kerala is also famous for its jackfruit, a fruit which is said to be the fruit of the future for you may arrive at so many gifts courtesy the jackfruit tree. After the coconut tree I would very definitely say it is the jackfruit tree which is the “kalpavriksha” or wish fulfilling tree of down south India! There never was a dairy culture in cuisine down south India but all the way down the Konkan and Malabar coastal states you will find coconut and jackfruit along with the maroon beauty of the “kokum” holding court in kitchen after kitchen…also the root veggies and spices of course…nutmeg and cardamom and “black gold” pepper. No need to go into the history of the spice trade colonial history here for it is too well known.
COME to think of it is only in a few states that we may find such a festive traditional meal as the Onasadya in Kerala; these meals are so distinctive and of the mother earth of each state’s soil. After Kerala think of the “bhog” meal in West Bengal with its distinctive recipes, or take the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin recipes, Gujarat has its own coterie of sumptuous delights for the palate and of course there is the tantalizing Kashmiri “wazwan” (of non-veg fame) and the Rajasthani platter replete with “dal-batti-churmo” and we have also heard a repertoire of recipes to be found only in Bihar and Orissa, Nepal, Punjab, the mountain states of Uttarakhand.
This is to say that during Onam festivities if you visit one of the community celebrations you will also get to see the women sumptuously attired in cream gold ribbon saree and there’ll be flower decoration “rangoli” and the children will enact stories of King Mahabali’s happy times! Saturday is Anant Chaturdashi and I think the last day when a few of the restaurants with a Malayali clientele will be serving Onasadya for the final time…be sure to catch it, remember the most expensive may not necessarily be the most traditional. Go for traditional, forget the rest!

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